US Politics, December 2019: Profound procedural deficiencies

Title phrase from here. Runner-up candidate: "Under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate."

And where are the tax returns?

Trump team positions Pence as the antidote to anti-Trump animus

'Cause who doesn't love Mike Pence, right? Nobody, that's who! Except anyone who's ever met him, spoken to him, seen video of him being interviewed, or lived in Indiana...

Read that as "anti-Trump anus"

that would be Bill Kristol

During Sondland's testimony, he talked about mentioning his concerns about Ukraine to Pence and Pence simply responding with a silent nod that I'm assuming didn't convey much in the way of information or intention or even sentience, and that felt like kind of a key Pence anecdote. The upshot being that you could just whip up a gross of Pence mannequins and hit all of your campaign stops simultaneously without anyone really noticing that anything is awry.

Although you'd also have to cobble together accompanying Karen Pence mannequins in the event that your Pence dummies ever came into contact with a human female.

RIP big man

Rep. Duncan Hunter to abandon not-guilty plea in campaign finance scandal https://t.co/sPYlUhKIJX

— Phil Willon (@philwillon) December 2, 2019

shabooty, sha sha, shabooty ROLL CALL! shabooty, sha ha, shabooty:

Arizona’s 6th (David Schweikert, R) Solid Republican to Likely Republican
California’s 25th (Vacant, D) Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic
Illinois’ 6th (Sean Casten, D) Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic
Illinois’ 13th (Rodney Davis, R) Tilt Republican to Toss-up
Iowa’s 2nd (Open; Dave Loebsack, D) Toss-up to Tilt Democratic
Iowa’s 4th (Steve King, R) Lean Republican to Tilt Republican
Michigan’s 8th (Elissa Slotkin, D) Tilt Democratic to Lean Democratic
Michigan’s 11th (Haley Stevens, D) Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic
Minnesota’s 1st (Jim Hagedorn, R) Lean Republican to Tilt Republican
Minnesota’s 2nd (Angie Craig, DFL) Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic
New Hampshire’s 1st (Chris Pappas, D) Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic
Virginia’s 2nd (Elaine Luria, D) Tilt Democratic to Lean Democratic

also, barf warning: the house judiciary committee includes louis gohmert, jim jordan, AND matt gaetz.

(barf suppressant: also pramila jayapal and ted lieu)

saw something on Twitter to the effect that the redrawn districts in NC have led to a projected two-member gain for the Dems.

What a shock.

Impeach this motherfucker next

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/barr-doesnt-accept-key-inspector-general-finding-about-fbis-russia-investigation/2019/12/02/4464f018-154d-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html?tid=sm_fb

Intelligence Committee impeachment report coming tomorrow.

Great! That's one more step ahead. But it will probably make the same case as was easily apparent from the public testimony from the major witnesses, tightened up, with some ancillary details added from acquired documentation, plus the depositions taken in private session from both 'major' and 'minor' witnesses. The public testimony was plenty enough to make a strong case, but it is always nice to leave few or no loose ends.

I very much hope that some further counts can be added to the eventual articles of impeachment, beyond just those generated by the Ukraine scandal. He needs to be called to account for so many of his actions it is hard to recall them all.

Narrator: He was called to account for none of his actions.

don trump is the best vampire hunter ever! ever!!

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/472460-poll-majority-of-republicans-say-trump-better-president-than-lincoln

I like Presidents who don't free the slaves

I prefer this level of honesty to the disingenuous 'party of Lincoln' bullshit the GOP trumpets as if they haven't done everything they could since the '60s to nullify any meaning that might once have possessed.

Judging by what I've read, the Dem reps in Trump districts are really committed to keeping impeachment "focused" ie this one 'national security' issue only is relevant. As if DJT's personal enrichment of himself by smashing the emolument restraints are in any way "secure."

Arsonist members of former anti-arson organization declare current pro-arson chairman to be way cooler than founding anti-arson chairman, more at 11.

funny detail in the full results of that poll, republican voters easily favor reagan over trump (59 to 41%)

so it's basically

REAGAN
TRUMP
LINCOLN

also, check out pg 288 of the full results (rank 8 republican presidents) to see that 8% of GOP voters would say that lincoln is the very WORST republican president out of the options provided (lincoln, eisenhower, nixon, ford, reagan, HW bush, W bush, trump)

gosh i wonder what their rationale for coming to that conclusion could possibly be

when you're in the company of legends, you gotta be legendary. sorry abraham lincoln

Green Party has lost its place on the Arizona ballot, after failing to turn in the 31k signatures necessary to qualify by Friday - https://t.co/lGutt12IOw

— Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) December 3, 2019

it's sad, they were a political party

This shit rules. It's like if Stanley Kubrick made a Hallmark movie. Obviously the Trumps should live in a toilet forever but their aesthetic is hilarious. https://t.co/Jdwfr7nXI2

— David Roth (@david_j_roth) December 2, 2019

lol at the camera sweeping across the ornament "BE BEST" spelled out in scrabble letters

it's quite a production

rich people really are the tackiest fuckers on earth

GILD THE CAGE FURTHER

Incredible- pure class 🙏🏼🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/m9Cy709vyr

— Geoff De Weaver 🇺🇸 (@geoff_deweaver) December 2, 2019

View from the chopper as Trump makes his way across Central London.

Well played, @metpoliceuk Special Escort Group. 👏👏👏😂👍 pic.twitter.com/EbcWRVC4qT

— CivMilAir ✈ (@CivMilAir) December 2, 2019

#Christmas

FAKE NEWS

It was dark here when he arrived ( & I loathe him, so would love this old photoshop to be true)

— freya_theferret (@TheferretFreya) December 2, 2019

DEEZ faux NUTS

Trump says that, under the precedent being set by the Democrats, in the future someone is going to pick an orange out of the refrigerator and not like it and therefore decide to impeach the president.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 3, 2019

orange man bad?

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/trump-pushed-hard-for-company-owned-by-gop-donor-to-get-400-million-contract-it-just-did-despite-not-meeting-standards/

For months President Donald Trump has “personally and repeatedly urged the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers” to award a lucrative Defense Dept. contract to build a portion of his wall on the Southern border to a construction company owned by a GOP donor. On Monday, despite reports that the North Dakota company, Fisher Sand and Gravel, did not meet Defense Dept. standards and has a history of tax and environmental violations, the DoD awarded Fisher the $400 million contract, The Washington Post reports.

Trump reportedly has been so active in pushing for Fisher to be awarded the contract that at one point on Fox News the president told Sean Hannity his administration was dealing with the company’s owner, and declared the company had been “recommended strongly by a great new senator, Kevin Cramer.”

That Senator, Republican Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, has also been pushing for Fisher Sand and Gravel to get the contract despite its owner, Tommy Fisher, being a donor to Senator Cramer, The Independent reports.

President Trump has seen Tommy Fisher advocate for the contract in his multiple appearances on Fox News, the president’s favorite cable news channel.

“In phone calls, White House meetings and conversations aboard Air Force One during the past several months, Trump has aggressively pushed Dickinson, N.D.-based Fisher Industries to Department of Homeland Security leaders and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps,” The Washington Post reported in May. “The push for a specific company has alarmed military commanders and DHS officials.”

Tommy Fisher has ties to former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon, Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince, ex-GOP congressman Tom Tancredo and former Kansas GOP secretary of state Kris Kobach. Bannon and Kobach have worked for Trump, Prince is the brother of Eduction Secretary betsy DeVos.

In an August report on Trump’s “brazen” corruption The Nation described the four men as “an all-star cast of grifters and white nationalists.”

“Tommy Fisher and his wife gave more than $10,000 — the maximum allowable contribution — to Cramer in 2018 as he ran for Senate, campaign finance records show. Fisher was Cramer’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union speech in February that year, and the CEO said he shook the president’s hand afterward,” The Washington Post notes, adding that “Trump backed Cramer last year in his campaign to unseat Democrat Heidi Heitkamp.”

A 2017 report from NBC affiliate 12 News (video below) states the city of Phoenix “filed 467 criminal charges” against Fisher Sand and Gravel, along with “2000 city and county violations.”

so like this would absolutely be an impeachable offense under any Democratic president right

Oh don't be silly, Republicans wouldn't require as high a threshold.

someone will pick an orange out of a refrigerator and not like it

His supporters love Trump because 'he's the only politician who tells them the truth'.

Fun fact: despite sharing a skin color with the well-known citrus fruit, Donald Trump has never actually come into physical contact with an orange!

or any fruits except Elton John

Well, maybe if the orange was hollowed out and inside there was a thumb drive full of evidence of criminal activity by the president, and the person who grabbed it was all "WHAT THE FUCK?! Why is there nothing decent in the white house ...to eat?" And they kick off impeachment proceedings out of pure hanger. I get it.

Was it really a smart move for the GOP to release their impeachment memo first? Sometimes being first helps control a narrative with the general public, who tend to focus more on the initial statement and look at rebuttals with sour grapes.

Idk that it makes as much sense here - it's manna for Republicans, but six of the last seven polls released that included Independents and asked participants were asked if they supported impeaching trump had a plurality of Independent voters supporting it. By a small margin, nonetheless, but those are the people who require convincing and so far they've done poorly. Not sure that a preemptive "nothing to see here" will be as effective as their stupid "release the memo" campaign was.

Giving the Dems the last word might backfire (hopefully).

They don't have a real defense, so it probably doesn't matter

yeah the GOP has no play here besides endless conspiracy theorizing and straight up saying "he did it, so what, get over it"

Wow. These are Rudy Giuliani’s phone calls the day Marie Yovanovitch was removed from her post.

That the Intel Committee got access to phone logs of the president’s personal defense attorney is just stunning. #housereport pic.twitter.com/lWF9nEb7OX

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) December 3, 2019

imagine being "-1"

That DJTJ or Eric, right?

mmm, detention savings opportunities

McKinsey and Co., the international consultants, were deeply involved in helping the Trump administration figure out how to crack down on illegal immigration, new documents show. Copublishing with @propbulica https://t.co/atwFN6dJ7k

— Kim Murphy (@kimmurphy) December 3, 2019

I often look for detention savings opportunities at Target!

house intel committee report is out

.@JustinTrudeau, @EmmanuelMacron, @BorisJohnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday. No one mentions @realDonaldTrump by name, but they seem to be discussing his lengthy impromptu press conferences from earlier in the day. (Video: Host Pool) pic.twitter.com/dVgj48rpOP

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) December 3, 2019

someone's head is going to explode when he sees this

hey has he golfed yet?

^ inquiring minds want to know!

Newsweek article says he golfed on Thanksgiving

It's what the Pilgrims would have wanted!

That Newsweek reporter got fired for that story!

I don't know, it's not like anyone in that video admitted to sexual assault or something terrible, no one could ever recover from that

free roger stone!

President Trump on @JustinTrudeau: "He's two-faced."

Full video here: https://t.co/6R701KZDiU pic.twitter.com/tarJJZbgO1

— CSPAN (@cspan) December 4, 2019

tfw you unintentionally make the funniest insult you'll ever manage

lol

Countdown to US declaration of war with Canada in 3...2...

House Judiciary Committee Democrats met behind closed doors for six hours on Tuesday for a private preparation session ahead of the panel’s official overtaking of the impeachment inquiry Wednesday. And the committee’s chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) used the prep time to offer some candid reassurance to his caucus.

“I’m not going to take any shit,” he said, according to Politico. The remark made some lawmakers in the room straighten up in their seats, people in the room told Politico.

Politico described the meeting as a “dress rehearsal” for the upcoming hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee room, where the Intelligence Committee held all of its hearings in that space. The committee held a mock hearing and ex-staffers were brought in to play the role of Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Doug Collins (R-GA) and other aggressive minority members of the committee.

Committee members reportedly feel confident in their approach and Nadler’s leadership, heading into their first big hearing on Wednesday, but some lawmakers privately told Politico there is some concern in the caucus about Nadler’s approach and demeanor, a fear that Republicans plan to seize on Wednesday. As Playbook reported Tuesday, Judiciary Committee Republicans feel that Nadler will be easier to rattle than House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) because he often relies on notes for much of his statements and questioning.

in the weeks/months between the mueller report and the impeachment hearings, schiff was much, much more impressive than nadler, anywhere i heard or saw them. don't fuck this up, tough guy nadler

I figure Nadler's doing his impression of Chevy Chase's impression of De Niro in Taxi Driver because he knows he fucked up. Schiff impressed the hell out of me; I thought he'd be the wuss.

jeez, nadler's already getting rattled by "MR BIGGS"

the less time he spends talking, the better

the weird thing about nadler is that he seems like he's directly out of the watergate hearings. i don't get that same feeling from other people of his age.

i know it's to be expected, but there's some really demoralizing about listening to an expert on constitutional law calmly and thoroughly explain why the president must be impeached for about 5 minutes, followed immediately by a parliamentary bullshit stalling question leading to some vote on tabling some motion leading to a request for a roll call leading to a 21-17 vote to confirm that the motion will be tabled

yeah i def can't tune into this crap today

it is the house committee equivalent of a flamingo thrusting its head deep into the sand in the middle of an animal town meeting about how the flamingo never does the dishes

Don’t forget this resistance grifter/congressman sucks

When @POTUS travels outside our country, he represents us to the world. We are all Americans. We should wish him well and want him to succeed. Basic courtesies should be extended to the American President and First Lady. What Princess Anne did was unnecessary and disrespectful. https://t.co/cwOR0hG8iP

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 4, 2019

ewww, wtf ted lieu? i thought he was alright

Can you possibly get your tongue any further up there, Ted? Give 'er a go. See what you can do.

Trump caught on hot mic talking about Trudeau and his scrapping of news conf per pool reporter @betsy_klein - “Oh, and then you know what they'll say. He didn't do a press conference. He didn't do a press conference. That was funny when I said the guy's two-faced, you know that.”

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 4, 2019

All particulars about the Choad-in-Chief aside, entreaties to show respect for someone who's done precisely nothing to earn anyone's respect is one of the most efficient means of eliciting a 'STFFU,YFF' from yers truly.

Ted lieu is very much a centrist democrat whose critique is basically “this is not normal”

i.e. MSNBCs m.o.

I'm not sure what apparent obvious takeaway I'm supposed to understand from that Princess Anne thing I'm continually sick of people trying very hard to squeeze reality show drama out of innocuous moments or facial expressions/body language part #3220965 in a series

All I know is that Trump's head looks like a testicle wearing a wig so I don't begrudge anyone looking askance at his nutsack-faced self

My god if your nutsack looks like Trump-face hie thee to an apothecary posthaste

Where did I say he looked like MY nutsack? That is an affront to my lovely scrotum

Scrotus

This is the day that they cannot spoil
The birthing day of the princess royal
So let's celebrate the living span
Of our lovely Annie-ann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe37TgK_9k

Absolutely teary eyed laughing at DJP's last two posts, trying to retain composure at work. Thanks, man.

BREAKING: Ya balls

I dont think the shrug was meant as an insult to trump.

But even so, Trump built his career on disrespecting people. Respect is an important value to me and I do aim, in my life, to treat everyone with dignity, but fuck him.

Meanwhile the persuasive Jonathan Turley is making a horseshit argument against impeachment. Real forest-for-the-trees nonsense from the guy who said Clinton's blowjob was an impeachable offense.

It’s extremely cut and dry. All the GOP can do is flail.

I suppose if there is a lesson to be learned by the current scofflaw in chief, and future scofflaws, it's that ignoring subpoenas is not only OK but encouraged. If you're never called to testify under oath, you can never be caught lying under oath. Better to gamble on obstruction than get busted for perjury.

All particulars about the Choad-in-Chief aside, entreaties to show respect for someone who's done precisely nothing to earn anyone's respect is one of the most efficient means of eliciting a 'STFFU,YFF' from yers truly.

how is telling your mother that a queue has ended showing disrespect to anyone

Why are the Dems not emphasizing, publicly and often, that much of this mess stems from President Asshole repeatedly targeting private US citizens? If he can target them with impunity, and career officials, and military officers, etc., demean them, and destroy them, over and over again, he can do it to anyone.

Because that would be seen as a positive to a lot of these vengeful, stupid, "well it will never happen to ME" fuckers

I believe that's all referred to as "the swamp"

A swamp in their pants

Never underestimate the mental gymnastic acumen of those who chronically and spitefully vote against their own interests.

Barely been paying attention today, because why bother, but the GOP's stance is so untenable it's embarrassing.

"This process is a sham, there are all sorts of fact witnesses we need to hear from!"

"What about all the fact witnesses and first-hand accounts Asshole has forbidden from testifying? Shouldn't we hear from them under oath? Like Trump, or Pompeo, or Pence o r Rudy?"

"No, not from them, just the other people, like Biden and Elmo and Nessie."

oh cool here's the new fake outrage we get to hear about for the next week

A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 4, 2019

this is the cruel & indefensible joke in question

KARLAN: "I will give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king, which is, the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while Trump can name his son 'Barron,' he can't make him a baron." pic.twitter.com/FF0E0KyAEh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 4, 2019

it's not like she insulted a dead soldier's family or anything

she insulted him by...calling him by the name his parents gave him? idgi

He's going to be confused and embarrassed by the answer he'll get when he asks his father why he can't make a Barron.

poor kid still rattled from the time he thought Kathy Griffin beheaded his father

This is the stupidest, fakest thing

She practically murdered the child with that comment

the GOP's already fund raising off that remark.

The GOP fundraises even when there is nothing to be outraged about. They're just crazy fundraising fools.

I intend no criticism. I've sent them a dollar in the shape of a turd.

I am deeply offended by this neutral public acknowledgement of a child Donald Trump forgot that he fathered. What's next, a reminder of Tiffany's existence?

Speaking of forgetting of something's existence, I completely forgot the Senate exists. What do those dummies do all day?

Confirm incompetent judges

it's a full time job

OMG SHE FUCKING APOLOGIZED?!?!?!?!

This really is the dumbest stupidest fucking country.

...and that's how the GOP wins

OMG SHE FUCKING APOLOGIZED?!?!?!?!

Discretion is the better part of valor. This just takes the hammer that the GOP has been using to beat her with out of their hands. It's not as if she is apologizing for some central idea or any part of the substance of what she said, so there's no reason to dig in and vociferously defend such an irrelevant part of her testimony.

yeah, agree

This just takes the hammer that the GOP has been using to beat her with out of their hands.

I can tell this is your first day here on Earth, so let me explain: What will happen now is they will hammer even harder, every hour of every day, until impeachment is over and long afterward, until eventually Trump will just have to mention her name at one of his goon rallies in the same tone he mentions Lisa Page and Peter Strozk to inspire mocking cheers and roars of rage, and long after everyone else on Earth has forgotten who this woman is she will remain a hate-object in Knuckle-Walker Land, because she dared to mock the God-Emperor's child.

yup cause hey, she even admitted she did something wrong!

the only way to "win" vs this or any GOP tactics/policies is to have 40% of the country stop being stupid selfish paranoid xenophobic assholes. Good luck USA>

Exactly, the GOPs entire operating procedure revolves around them constantly being apologized to for perceived slights. Don’t play into it.

Don’t get me wrong it would be understandable if there was any chance someone was actually offended by this but we all know that they don’t really care. Trump probably doesn’t even remember the kid’s name.

miserable timeline indeed

for all we know it's some made up kid

So, if one concludes that there is no difference whatsoever between the result if she apologizes and if she doesn't, then there is no harm at all in her apologizing and it becomes just a personal decision she made for her own purposes; it's none of our business.

Nobody's gonna remember this shit in two weeks.

that's what I think

conservatives are still doing Hanoi Jane joeks. They are the masters (and weirdly effective) at beating a dead horse into paste

and mashing the resultant paste

I wish the entire GOP Congress had been in the car with Vince Neil that fateful night

I know. It’s still fucking infuriating. Don’t forget Melania parading around a newly orphaned baby for a photo op while her dipshit husband (whose rhetoric probably inspired the killer) smiled for the cameras and have a big thumbs up. These people deserve nothing but milkshake hats.

they think they're the popular kids and we're all in seventh grade forever

this apology was unnecessary, but the demand was no more ridiculous than a few "you keep her name out of your filthy mouth" style threats i've heard made that have absolutely NOTHING to do with any actual or accidental insult, so uh, "america."

what are you people reading or watching where this shit is even a big deal? And I read NRO once a week.

seriously - nobody sincerely cares about barron

Nobody Sincerely Cares About Barron by Tiffany Trump (for readers ages 10 to 47)

I wish the entire GOP Congress had been in the car with Vince Neil that fateful night

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Wednesday, December 4, 2019 5:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know. It’s still fucking infuriating.

― frogbs, Wednesday, December 4, 2019 5:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same, guys. Same.

This is the lead story on foxnews.com right now and prominently featured on cnn’s site

IOW I would not be even slightly surprised if everything unperson laid out above came to pass

She shouldn’t have apologized.

This is the lead story on foxnews.com right now and prominently featured on cnn’s site

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A

the Speaker of the House is directing the Judiciary to draw up articles of impeachment for the President

oh surprise

anyway, obviously it has to be done, he won't be removed, and now I fear he's going to be re-elected and our next five years are going to be a fucking authoritarian hellscape previously unimagined.

oh fuck off

Everything the asshole does is so beyond the pale I wish people like her stopped being so fucking solemn about it and just repeatedly kicked him in the nuts, literally and rhetorically. As if anxious hand wringing is going to get impeachment any more support.

Impeached or not, the most likely outcome of all of this is that asshole will ... ask another foreign power to interfere in the election for personal gain.

Crikey, our impending authoritarian hellscape is gonna have to swing for some pretty weird extremes to achieve 'previously unimagined' status. Like forcing all registered dems to become furries, shit like that.

“Previously unimagined hellscape” pretty rich for a country built on the enslavement of millions

allegedly

Can I just say what garbage it is for anyone to say "we take no joy in this, this will tear the country apart." The "country" really doesn't give a shit, and those that do get to vote in a year. Is the 2020 election any less likely to "tear the nation apart?" Would Trump winning/losing be any less "divisive" than any candidate winning/losing, or any less divisive than it was in 2016?

I feel like a sizable chunk of people voted Trump in 2016 simply because he was not Hillary, and thought we should "give him a chance." Since then he has vacillated between moronic and evil, and his entire administration is corrupt and venal, so a vote for him in 2020 *is* more divisive, because the voter wants to perpetuate even more of this shit.

butt > her emails

ask another foreign power to interfere in the election for personal gain

lol he'll do it DURING the impeachment trial

When you're president, they let you do it.

spotlight needs to impeachment BRIGHT because this shit will only get worse

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/03/russian-owned-company-caught-trying-to-hack-ohio-voting-systems-on-election-day/

During the hearings I was annoyed that the democrats would verbatim read their wooden, prewritten corny speeches where it sounded like they were all competing in a high school inspirational essay contest. I just kind of feel like in context the speeches being so rigidly tailored contrasting the republican delivery helped the GOP sound more conversational and this arguably would help their dumb premise about how the whole thing being a fabricated means to an end to get Trump out any way possible. Ultimately means nothing just irritated at the optics and how GOP get to use it to strengthen their dumb narrative.

Personally i’m not disappointed that the Democrats aren’t emulating the yahoos in the GOP. Best to stick to the truth and not try to game the optics too much.

I appreciate the dems' adherence to norms and procedure but it would be nice if a greater number of them were better capable of demonstrating to the public-at-large why one would aspire to those aims. Because to the casual observer it increasingly appears that behaving like an unhinged two-year-old is the most effective way to get things done (or bring them to a screeching halt) in government.

I mean, optics aren't everything but they certainly aren't nothing. Particularly in the age of President Reality Show.

Not saying they need to emulate GOP, but it would be nice if they sounded more down to earth. Their righteous speeches one after another just came off like they were all desperately vying to be quoted in future history books.

Fantasizing about one of their quotes making it on a history class chalkboard someday

They didn't sound like they were actually interested in interviewing the scholars; everything was canned. It helps make the whole process look like theater.

There is no power on earth that can stop a Congressional Representative in front of a television camera from acting out their favorite role-playing character.

positive norms have value, but only if the just result is achieved. if he ends up "re-elected," any good behavior along the way seems for naught to me.

Fantasizing about one of their quotes making it on a history class chalkboard someday

nah. I'm just here to chat with people who are able to respond in kind.

I'm here for the blow

plus bennies

Imagine thinking the message "the president of France is laughing at us" won't make Americans more likely to want to continue down this path

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) December 5, 2019

It's easy if you try.

it would be nice if they sounded more down to earth

Bernie's good at this

(of course NOT A DEMOCRAT)

doesn't the Grifter's "do it now, fast" sound like Big Pussy on the boat before the crew whacked him?

Imagine thinking the message "the president of France is laughing at us" won't make Americans more likely to want to continue down this path

Trump literally campaigned on "the rest of the world is laughing at us and I'm gonna make them stop"

buuuut that won't mean anything to his malleable fans

Trump completely understands that the subtext of what he says is what's important to his supporters, not the literal meaning. His communication to them is almost entirely made up of postures, attitudes, and signifiers, not articulate sentences reflecting his thoughts and ideas. He gets it. They get it. That's what matters, not the criticism of outsiders.

Xxxpost "not in the face"

Trump literally campaigned on "the rest of the world is laughing at us and I'm gonna make them stop"

they were laughing at Obama because he was so weak and ineffective. they're laughing at Trump because they're jealous of his commanding presence and physique

And his shrinky dink

"malleable" means "dying to be hit with mallets," right?

Yes

pareene should be slapped for that smug-ass tweet

worthless punditry

really pointless point but i guess that's why he's on twitter

frogbs has it - "they're laughing at us" is just another way to say "Obama's bad, amirite folks?" It's not like anybody was actually won over by the citation of foreign opinion as an appeal to something they cared about before or after.

buuuut that won't mean anything to his malleable fans

nothing won't mean anything to his malleable fans.

next meaningless topic...

BUT DID YOU HEAR WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT BARRON

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-cell-where-a-sick-16-year-old-boy-died-in-border-patrol-care

rmde that the best the Dems can do in the race for the open Senate seat in GA is fucking Joe Lieberman's son?!? I mean maybe he's okay/different from his dad but...

Did anyone think to double check that it isn't just Joe dressed up like a young?

tv ads are just de-aging CGI a la Irishman

I'm Joe Lieberman and I heartily endorse the candidacy of my 'son' Low Jeeberman.

rmde that the best the Dems can do in the race for the open Senate seat in GA is fucking Joe Lieberman's son?!? I mean maybe he's okay/different from his dad but...

― Οὖτις, Friday, December 6, 2019 11:56 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Never forget the weird guy with the hat who was the 2016 Senate nominee in Georgia. Now he's a Tulsi stan:

Debate Watch Party - Please join me! These days, we need Character & Courage. Tulsi has shown both. Standing up FOR American interests, and AGAINST the moneyed and foreign interests pushing us into unending wars. Let’s invest in America again! Valuing Growth | Growing Values pic.twitter.com/S1nRYHGEkL

— Jim Barksdale (@jimbarksdale) November 17, 2019

He runs a “health care consulting business” I’m sure he’s much better than his father

he man if the bushes can convince people they were down home texas boys why can't the lieberman clan convince people they're down home southerners

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ed/3e/15/ed3e15e6d2fa9fa0f822c3d62af520e9--wooden-projects-minions.jpg

There should probably be laws against the formation of political dynasties but I'm not sure who would pass those laws.

IMO fuck that noise (but I've said this before)

yes, voters should be smart enough to choose wisely. or not believe what they see on the webz, which is why i dobt esp but the horrors of 'roll farms.' Then again, we're a nation of dopes.

truly great piece from @ddayen on pelosi's pathetic drug pricing bill. the lengths her office has gone to in trying to crush even the tiniest efforts to make the bill good are insane https://t.co/fTO40OA29N pic.twitter.com/9Sl4lRLB1A

— guy fieri 2020 campaign manager (@libbycwatson) December 6, 2019

BREAKING: The U.S. House of Representatives just passed #HR4 to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and end voter suppression. This is a monumental moment. pic.twitter.com/JcRJmySrrH

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 6, 2019

Look at those vote totals.

you can see Biden's long arm reaching across the aisle

Ah Amash. Truly a beacon of integrity in politics. Hates Trump, loves voter suppression

GOP wouldn't exist on a national level at this point without the bag of magnificent tricks (of which voter suppression is but one).

"personal responsibility!"

go die in a fire you fucking traitor

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) says that Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine black Americans in a Charleston church in 2015, "hijacked" the meaning of the Confederate flag.

"Here is this guy that comes out with his manifesto, holding the Confederate flag, and had just hijacked everything that people thought of," Haley said on "The Glenn Beck Podcast" Thursday.

"People saw it as service and sacrifice and heritage, but once he did that, there was no way to overcome it."

I know Nikki Haley is pale and all but does she just not care that these people would cheerfully have abused and murdered her back in the day, too?

that just got her the RNC nomination in 2024

Well luckily Roof was a lone hijacker, and that will never happen again.

That is such an incredibly moronic take I just can't even.

Nikki has hitched her wagon to the Party of Lincoln Unambiguous Racism and must either go along or get out.

Wow, can't believe Dylan Roof became the living embodiment of tainted the sacred meaning of the Confederate flag, so rude.

one thing i learned from Jane Mayer's Dark Money is that Glenn Beck (and Mark Levin, among others) used to receive large payments from the many "foundations" supported by the koch brothers. that doesn't seem that unusual, sadly, but what's really fucked up is that in return for the payments, he agreed to work in koch-sponsored messages into his main broadcast, without telling the audience that they were straight from the koch brothers.

FreedomWorks, it was later revealed, also had some hired help. The tax-exempt organization quietly cemented a deal with Glenn Beck, the incendiary right-wing Fox News television host who at the time was a Tea Party superstar. For an annual payment that eventually topped $1 million, Beck read "embedded contend" written by the FreedomWorks staff. They told him what to say on the air, and he blended the promotional material seamlessly into his monologue, making it sound as if it were his own opinion. The arrangement was described on FreedomWorks' tax disclosures as "advertising services."

i know i should be used to this stuff by now, but i'm amazed that beck is still on the air, that anyone can go on his show without ridicule, etc.

"loe jeeberman" cracked me up for some reason

REPORTER: Who's your starter?
BELICHICK: We signed a veteran from the Turkish league, Tmō Bardy.
BRADY: [in black beard, caftan]
Merhaba.

— Lupus Haas (@Mobute) May 11, 2015

Trump expresses frustration about water efficiency, says sinks don’t have enough pressure and people have to flush toilets multiple times. He says he has directed the EPA to look at opening up water standards. It’s called rain, he says, referring to states with lots of water. pic.twitter.com/pwvzqULeGB

— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) December 6, 2019

President Burger Bucket wants the EPA to relax "water standards" because for some inexplicable reason it takes more than one flush to get rid of his hideous greaseturds

I think this is the best piece I've read on impeachment so far:
https://www.salon.com/2019/12/06/impeachment-and-the-democrats-how-will-they-screw-this-up-let-me-count-the-ways/

I didn't make it past the first paragraph, which contains this painfully hilarious mischaracterization

Bolton... who is now a private citizen and has always been a blast-hardened neocon Republican, and who is clearly eager to roast Donald Trump’s gizzard on a fork and then eat it,

Bolton declined to testify, he's not eager to do shit unless compelled by a Court ruling, which will take forever.

Greased trumpturds, whoa greased trumpturds

xp he's covering his ass, but he seems like he wants to testify.

Bolton probably wouldn't mind roasting Trump's gizzard, but he won't do it unless his ass is completely covered by legal compulsion all tied up with a ribbon. Then he can say the nasty Democrats forced him to eviscerate Trump. Because he knows doing it voluntarily would burn all his bridges and he'd like to weasel his way back into future administrations.

^^^

personally I find all the hand-wringing about how Dems have handled impeachment ridiculous. First the left were all pissed that Pelosi wasn't moving fast enough, now they're pissed that after she did jump on it she didn't manage to pry any support out of the racist mouthbreathing no-info voters that comprise the GOP and their representatives. Let's be clear here: there's pretty much *nothing* the Democrats (or Trump, for that matter) could do at this point - either procedurally, rhetorically or politically - that would make anybody cross party lines on impeachment. No amount of evidence or publicity stunts or impassioned speeches is going to crack McConnell and the GOP base's grip on the party. This process has driven that home. The GOP will never, ever ditch Trump. And since they control the Senate, it's a foregone conclusion that this isn't going to remove him from office. And since it's a foregone conclusion people are starting to pay less attention/not care about it.

I don't think this is a good outcome, but it's pretty much the only outcome that was possible.

you can't rule when you're in the minority, that's just a fact. all you can do is obstruct.

that salon piece sucks ass

the worst thing about this is that Trump now knows he has carte blanche to completely ratfuck the 2020 election and he definitely will do his best

I think about this "lesson" fairly often, seems apropos re: everyone that was screaming for impeachment over the summer:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EJKZhfxYMLw/UeJhmE89JNI/AAAAAAAAKBQ/GntxWROivxA/s1600/cerebus_066_throwing_babies2.jpg

By the way, can we stop pretending that whatever Hunter Biden was doing in Ukraine was fine and squeaky-clean and totally above board? That’s all a parenthesis, of course, and there’s no evidence that his dad was directly involved, even if the optics were kind of un-good. But Hunter was getting paid a one-percenter salary to do absolutely nothing because he was the vice president’s son. If you are truly committed to constructing that as “well, he didn’t do anything wrong,” you're either a shameless party hack or you've been thoroughly gaslit by end-stage capitalism. Probably both.

no one has said this

skimmed the Salon piece, don't see any obvious suckitude.

no reason not to put as much of the Grifter's malfeasance into impeachment, except whatever the Blue Dogs are calling themselves these days won't stand for it.

Pelosi is very obviously a typical Dem hack, that's how she got her job. (look at her lousy drug bill)

yr posts are more like Trump tweets every day

a couple more exclamation points and yr done

yours are more like Trump turds bwahaaa you fell into that one pal

skimmed the Salon piece, don't see any obvious suckitude

First warning sign: It was published on Salon.

Bolton probably wouldn't mind roasting Trump's gizzard, but he won't do it unless his ass is completely covered by legal compulsion all tied up with a ribbon. Then he can say the nasty Democrats forced him to eviscerate Trump. Because he knows doing it voluntarily would burn all his bridges and he'd like to weasel his way back into future administrations.

object lesson works better with the page before included Shakey

"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers, and other elements of bathrooms," Trump says.

"People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once." pic.twitter.com/asDjGxuFts

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 6, 2019

the odd thing about it is how serious he is! if he delivered the whole thing in a mocking parody voice, it could just be seen as a really long joke about toilets. not the cutting edge, but pretty good for trump. but he's so serious! but not in the nathan fielder dumb serious way, just in the dumb dumb serious way

Trump thinks that poor flushing in a toilet is connected to water pressure? Not in any of the ordinary toilets for home installation I have ever seen. Those flush from a filled tank of water, which then refills after the toilet has flushed. All that could be accomplished with higher water pressure would be refilling the tank faster.

Obviously, a man who was born rich and has never done any low-fi plumbing at home is unlikely to know such stuff, but you'd think someone would explain it to him. Actually, I'm guessing someone tried to, but he didn't listen.

it's a situation where they're also looking very strongly at other elements of bathrooms as well, though

the president has no clothes

and has to flush about a dozen times, many are saying

We just don't have worthy turds

"it's not you, sir. it's EPA's terrible regulations on water pressure for toilets. we will look into it. very strongly."

Trump probably remembers the bitter complaints when the six gallon flush toilets were replaced by the first wave of rather underpowered six liter toilets, about 4 decades ago and thinks this would still be a hot issue for his base, resenting the un-American eggheads and tree-huggers who did away with mega-toilet tanks.

"Flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once" for January title.

It's beyond parody! The President is filling his toilets full of shit and he doesn't understand why he can't make the doody go away so he held a press conference!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfP_e3hsb4

He's very sad and concerned. So many White House toilets have been utterly obliterated.

The gold leaf just gets stripped off, like some corrosive substance is being dumped into the bowls.

i'm guessing he personally mishandled toilet complaints from residents at his father's properties

Flint still has lead in its water. jfc

Given Trump’s diet, he hasn’t had a normal shit in 70 years.

the nice thing about this clip is that you can watch it on mute and still know exactly what bullshit they're both saying

WATCH: @SenTedCruz says he believes Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. #MTP #IfItsSunday pic.twitter.com/OPAxpe6T6t

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 8, 2019

Hard to trust a man whose dad murdered JFK.

also someone who is the zodiac killer, shame

nah this is Bizarro Cruz, look at the facial hair.

#KremlinCruz has the same ring as #KremlinKennedy

I'd love to see an expose on how the cynical spreading of Russian propaganda by the GOP is undermining morale in the intelligence community. Though my understanding is that open partisanship is deeply frowned upon, its well known that the FBI was a bastion of conservative voters and the other 16 agencies probably were as well. I wonder how this open betrayal is felt, whether its shifting party identification, etc.

Still SMH about how this is the timeline in which the right is swoony over Russia and some on the left wax wistful about the institutional integrity of the FBI and CIA

(not a diss on Sanpaku, there, just general SMHness)

You don't have to like the CIA or FBI to nonetheless find it chilling when a President fires someone for investigating him, or dismisses CIA intelligence in lieu of urban legends he hears from Sean Hannity

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/473543-trump-calls-warren-pocahontas-knocks-wealth-tax

Just keep him talking about the 'wealth tax', whatever else he's on about.

(Obviously not excusing the racism but it's par for the course at this point.)

again mr Heidecker is hauntingly prescient

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LDdleGP_yY

remember when Ilhan Omar took a massive shitstorm from both sides because of that "all about the Benjamins" pun, I'm sure all those people are gonna be super outraged by Trump's suggestion here that Jews have no principles but money

Is Trump suddenly going to morph into a black Muslim woman?

Starting to think that was reeeally about something else

Xpost

The words are just value-free phonemes. All that matters is which mouth they're issuing from. We're nearing peak 'speaker >>>>> utterance' although I'm confident that we'll surpass that peak soon enough.

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

i will take any opportunity to bump linda ronstadt in the us politics thread

Singer Linda Ronstadt didn’t hesitate to rip into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a State Department reception at the 42nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington on Saturday night, according to a Variety report Sunday.

During his first turn as the official host of the event, where honorees receive their Kennedy Center rainbow ribbons, Pompeo wondered aloud: “As I travel the world, I wonder when I will be loved,” referring to lyrics in Ronstadt’s 1975 hit “When Will I Be Loved,” according to Variety.

When Ronstadt, who is known as an ardent critic of President Trump, took the microphone to receive the honor, she took aim at Pompeo.

“I’d like to say to Mr. Pompeo, who wonders when he’ll be loved, it’s when he stops enabling Donald Trump,” Ronstadt said, according to Variety.

Variety reported that Ronstadt immediately sat down after her remark, which drew gasps, slow-building applause and cheers from the audience.

i don't want to see or hear documentation of this, because in my head it was a classic hollywood slow-clap and it's perfect

That is great but I really want to know if anyone shouted "now tell us about playing South Africa during apartheid"

^^^

That completely cut from context clip that Twitter folks were going gaga over this weekend was driving me crazy.

ouch, i didn't know that. i will take anyopportunity to learn about how linda ronstadt is a giant dumbass in the us politics thread

She was....stubborn about breaking the boycott.

RS piece from 1983:

https://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artrs83.htm

In her dressing room after the concert, Linda Ronstadt talked some more about her beau who used to work for the government, Jerry Brown, the former governor of California. The political beau had advised his rock star girlfriend not to perform in South Africa, where a minority of 4.5 million whites rules over a majority of 21 million blacks.

"I don't take his advice very much," she said. "He doesn't want me to do things that are controversial. He's political. I'm not. He tries not to say no to me because he knows it won't work. He just looks into his napkin and writhes."

The offer to sing in South Africa had come at the last minute, when another singer and a boxer had to cancel out. Boom Boom Mancini, who killed a man in the ring last year, was supposed to fight. And Frank Sinatra, whose eyes are apartheid blue, was supposed to sing and help announce the fight. It was all a cable-television package. But then Boom Boom broke his collarbone. Sun City, needing a fill-in, turned to Linda Ronstadt.

"I was getting ready to go to Italy," she remembered. "They wanted me to pinch-hit for Sinatra and boxing. I had two days to decide. I talked to everyone. I called friends of mine at Motown. Their story was: 'Black artists go, so we can't tell you not to go.' I called up John Rockwell at the New York Times and got him to send me clips on South Africa."

(Rockwell remembers that call this way: "Linda had pretty much made her decision to go. She had passed the time when she could bow out. It didn't strike me as a thrilling idea. I had personal reservations. I'm not a big fan of South Africa. I didn't seem enthusiastic, but she's a voluble person. She does what she wants to do. What can you do?")

"If I won't play a repressive government, a police state," Linda continued, "then I couldn't play the black countries or Alabama or Boston"

I asked her if she thought there was any difference between playing Bophuthatswana and playing South Africa.

"Clearly there's no difference to me, Bophuthatswana or South Africa," she said. "The policy of the homelands is wrong. This isn't in any way an endorsement of the government."

She maintained that she did not learn of the United Nations' cultural and economic boycott of South Africa until after she arrived in Sun City. The UN resolution supporting the boycott was passed in 1968, but it has evidently not been popular reading material in the capitals of American music. A number of American musicians have defied the boycott and played South Africa: the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell, Cher, the Osmonds, Sha Na Na, Tina Turner, Frank Sinatra and even a group called America. Linda Ronstadt is different only in that I thought she was special.

'It's very strange performing here," she said. "I seem like a mirage to them, they to me. It's scary, like the Twilight Zone. Things seem nice. Then people get drunk and talk about their fear of a knock in the night."

Still: "I'm glad I came."

She took a bite of chicken.

"The last place for a boycott is in the arts. I don't like being told I can't go somewhere. Like when they told Jane Fonda she couldn't go to North Vietnam. Of course she should have gone to North Vietnam."

But, of course, Jane Fonda was not paid a half-million dollars to visit Hanoi.

last quarter of that quote is very yikes

jfc

When the party broke up, the band went out to prowl through the casinos and bars and discotheques in search of that most elusive game...the South African woman in heat, The rare wildewoman.

"What did she mean?" they kept asking each other. "What's wrong with our bodies?"

"I've been to black Africa," she told him. "I wanted to see what this would be like. I'll be criticized a lot when I get home. But I don't think it's fair. You can't not go to a country because there are some evil people in it. I'd love to get the chance to come back, but who knows? One of the things I'm trying to figure out while I'm down here is if I'm supposed to be here. I'm playing devil's advocate with myself."

The farm boy hoped she would come back.

"I'm trying to decide if it isn't a good idea to get a dialogue going," Linda said. "Now I have a whole other idea about what 'Desperado' means. Everybody here is a desperado. Everybody is a 'Prisoner in Disguise' because all the people feel so misunderstood by the outside world."

I'm not going to say it's always true but it's probably true in at least a majority of cases that a declaration of apoliticism basically = a declaration of amorality.

A lot of those quotes seem Kanye-esque.

Frank Sinatra, whose eyes are apartheid blue

my Crayola 64 box in 1983 didn't have this shade iirc

Alfred just beat me to re-posting that Sinatra quote. Having it framed as we speak.

It's either cherry red or Apartheid Blue

I just freeze every time you see through me

In her defense how else were oppressed South Africans able to receive the biting political commentary that is You're No Good?

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you're Apartheid Blue

I just freeze
Everytime you see through me
And it's all over you
Apartheid blue

On my knees
Help me, baby
Tell me, what can I do?
Apartheid blue

lol crut

alfred!!!! that’s the joke!!

but you never had Icehouse sing it to you

She didn't speak to RS for a decade after the interview ran. She must've loved this:

At breakfast the next morning, Linda Ronstadt was still wrestling with herself.

"What we are trying to decide," she said over granola and fresh fruit, "is if we did right in coming down here. We're talking about morals."

Snow White wrinkled her brow and took a bite of apple.

Snow White wrinkled her brow and took a bite of apple
and she walked the length of her days under African skies

This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein

(Ladysmith Black Mambazo does a dance)

(bouncy guitar figure)

https://www.khou.com/mobile/article/news/local/houston-police-chief-acevedo-blasts-the-nra-senators/285-4a9ec308-0ecb-4593-9249-7b30a9d2dec6

“We all know in law enforcement that one of the biggest reasons that the senate and (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell, (Texas Sens.) John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and others are not getting into a room and having a conference committee with the House and getting the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA) is because the NRA doesn’t like the fact that we want to take firearms out of the hands of boyfriends who abuse their girlfriends. And who killed sergeant? A boyfriend abusing his girlfriend.”

that video gets going at 2.39, that's a guy who can't put up with this shit anymore. the faces of the men and women surrounding him say a lot.

anyone else listening to the impeachment hearings right now? i was out for lunch so i don't know who is speaking, but both this witness and whoever is asking the questions appear to have no fucking clue what they're doing. not in the louie gohmert way, or the jim jordan way, but literally in the "...i think there was a document...what was it called? supplement? addenendum?" way, and it sounds like two people having an awkward conversation about a topic that neither really knows anything about?

I was watching a bit, the Castor guy went from barely competent prosecutor who constantly looks like he had to poop to smug asshole witness in the Corey L. mode.

i see that it's Ashley Hurt Callen, the lawyer for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, asking questions of the Castor (the republican counsel for the earlier, Schiff-driven proceedings)

it seriously sounds like a mock/practice session among 2nd year law students or something

Castor brought his materials to the chamber today in an Amazon/Whole Foods shopping bag

(that is not a joke)

A GOP superpower is to appear flummoxed and confused by anything that threatens them

Such as their repressed homosexuality

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

Hahahahaha

Most Americans are flummoxed and confused by anything connected to legalities or legal procedures, so the Republican base will be perfectly happy to accept any nonsense a GOP-apologist legal counsel babbles on television. I mean, they still think Giuliani is a crackerjack lawyer.

Guessing Ivanka neglected to tell daddy who her friends were

Also a blow to Trump, tho supposedly Barr will publicly disagree with the findings:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-watchdog-finds-russia-investigation-improper-missteps/story?id=67599147

barr is a real piece of shit

the url for that "blow to Trump" gives the opposite impression of what the story it links to says

"We're going to keep ordering investigations until an investigation produces the result we have predetermined that we want to see" is a curious way to run an agency whose mission is... conducting impartial investigations. But what do I know.

Yea they shoulda wrote "not improper" for the URL

Oh he already made that statement. Kinda dumb to do it simultaneously, now it gets folded into the Horowitz story rather than covered on its own.

exactly, and that's why they did it.

in other words, now the horowitz story immediately gets "bill barr disagrees" folded into it

Barr is a much worse piece of shit than Jeffery Beauregard Sessions, which is really saying something.

xp if barr delayed his response, the question would be why they didn't immediately dispute it, since barr would have the chance to review it long before it's publicly released

Trump's most ardent cronies have so inexorably lashed their own fates to that of their god-emperor that it's completely unsurprising at this point to see them do/say absolutely anything that putatively favors him, irrespective of how far outside the bounds of morality or normalcy or legality their actions may be. And to a man, they seem to have missed the news that impeachment proceedings aren't going to result in Trump being removed from office, so what the fuck is it all even for? Just to retain his personal favor?

I'm not convinced Bill Barr's disagreement will move anybody other than people who already believed there was spying to begin with.

This is much more of a nothingburger report than Mueller's, low info voters may not even notice he disagreed.

The article title mentions nothing about Barr here, nor does CNN's. In both cases you have to actually read it to find that out.

Wouldn't be surprised if later articles incorporate that into the title, but your serial cut and pasters that don't read the lede will probably not even notice.

i assume it's just so that they awarded with a larger mansion on the secret island they're all retreating to after all this is over

xp

gohmert is talking about how they already have enough evidence to impeach biden

Barr's traducing his oath of office yet again is another good reason why accosting and scolding these assholes wherever they appear in a public space seems like an idea to ponder seriously. It has both its attractions and its drawbacks.

The attractions are obvious. But one drawback that I can easily imagine would be the high likelihood that such public scolding would be breathlessly reported by FOX News as a form of shocking political violence, inspiring their audience to retaliate against the liberals 'in the same coin', except that 'same coin' would come in the form of physical violence. Because there are never any bad consequences to deliberately blurring the distinction between verbal scolding and physical assault.

--

gohmert must be referring to all that sworn testimony Giuliani gave on tv talk shows

These knuckleheads have a real thing for Adam Schiff. How long until they start imitating his sex noises?

They're recording them?

uuuuuugh matt gaetz is the fucking wooooooorst

he just listed off a series of issues that are more important than impeachment, including climate change

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/matt-gaetz

Maybe that's how we get them to finally care about it

Trick them

I wonder if there could be any way that progress on climate change and impeachment might have any connection to each other? Or is that too far-fetched?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) speculated that, should Joe Biden be elected president, he could be impeached on the grounds of the bogus Burisma allegations President Trump has pursued. “You have set the bar so low I’m afraid it’s irreparable,” he said. Pondering a potential Biden impeachment, Gohmert said: “We’ve already got the forms. All we have to do is eliminate Donald Trump’s name and put Joe Biden’s name in there, because he’s on video. He and his son. He basically has admitted to the crime that’s being hoisted on the President improperly.”

try to worm your way out of THAT, democrats!

xp if not for impeachment, the heroic matt gaetz would be leading the fight on climate change. but instead, he has to be sitting there, asking these questions. to our children and our children's children, we are sorry. matt gaetz just did not have enough time

i don't know what to make of christopher steele's friendship with ivanka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8oAQOvOEXY

Chris bought her gifts? lol that’s a plot twist I was not expecting

MICHIGAN
2020 GE:
Trump 46% (+5)
Biden 41%

Trump 48% (+6)
Sanders 42%

Trump 47% (+9)
Warren 38%

Trump 48% (+11)
Buttigieg 37%

Trump 48% (+11)
Bloomberg 37%@Be0ptimus/@FirehouseStrat 12/3-5https://t.co/eQbNfxdFl9

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) December 9, 2019

WISCONSIN
2020 GE:
Trump 48% (+9)
Biden 39%

Trump 49% (+11)
Buttigieg 38%

Trump 49% (+12)
Bloomberg 37%

Trump 50% (+13)
Warren 37%

Trump 51% (+13)
Sanders 38%@Be0ptimus/@FirehouseStrat 12/3-5https://t.co/eQbNfxdFl9

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) December 9, 2019

PENNSYLVANIA
2020 GE:
Trump 45% (+4)
Bloomberg 41%

Trump 46% (+5)
Biden 41%

Trump 46% (+6)
Buttigieg 40%

Trump 47% (+7)
Warren 40%

Trump 48% (+10)
Sanders 38%@Be0ptimus/@FirehouseStrat 12/3-5https://t.co/eQbNfxdFl9

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) December 9, 2019

gee looks like Hannity was right all along, pack it up Dems

FIREHOUSE STRATEGIES IS A FULL-SERVICE PUBLIC AFFAIRS FIRM THAT FOCUSES ON DELIVERING TARGETED PERSUASION CAMPAIGNS FOR A WIDE VARIETY OF CORPORATE CLIENTS.

uuuuuugh matt gaetz is the fucking wooooooorst

― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Monday, December 9, 2019 4:29 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he just listed off a series of issues that are more important than impeachment, including climate change

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/matt-gaetz

― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Monday, December 9, 2019 4:30 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink The mere sight of his smarmy visage triggers violent urges, and then he speaks and it's just

the most punchable face in America. The mere sight of his smarmy visage triggers violent urges, and then he speaks and it's just..

so I just learned from a GOP congressman that "Democrat" lawmakers wanna ban air travel

works for me

I also want to take all their guns away

empty Wal Mart FEMA re-education camps would at least keep them busy, if not actually achieve the intended purpose.

The Firehouse Strategies polling "methodology" includes "peer-to-peer text message"

also "lying"

Is republicans are pure filth the correct formulation?

Hate to think any of these individuals are going to go onto continued careers.

this is a list of 430 polling firms, rated by 538.

https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/blob/master/pollster-ratings/pollster-ratings.csv

firehouse doesn't appear.

also, this is the firehouse strategie's wikipedia description: "Firehouse Strategies is a public relations consulting firm headquartered in Washington, DC. It was founded in 2016 by Republican strategists Terry Sullivan, Alex Conant, and Will Holley, who served on Senator Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign.[1][2]"

Can't trust a sub shop to poll people accurately, they got only two hands

you know what Rubio has to say about hands

They're permanently calloused from all the Brilliantine lathering?

how soon we forget
https://dailycaller.com/2016/02/28/rubio-goes-nuclear-on-trump-by-attacking-the-size-of-his-hands/

oh, looks the other firm mentioned (@Be0ptimus/@FirehouseStrat) is on there: Optimus. they've only done 15 polls so far, so ratings are preliminary, but currently they have a score of C/D

xp

rubio OBLITERATES trump!!!

Trump's bump

I wholeheartedly support the GOP's attempts to inflate Trump's chances of re-election. Keep complacent republicans home on election day and draw concerned democrats to the polls.

inclined to agree w that point

Or make defeatist Dems stay home.

cliche that was always being repeated a couple of years ago had the republicans being the ones who always voted. What does it take to get the same response from the democrats. Hope 3 years of hell is enough of a spark

Dems aren't gonna stay home. There was a BLUE WAVE MIGHT NOT HAPPEN/GET YOUR HOPES RESET message going out for months prior to midterms. They still showed up. 40 seats. And during the election nobody votes in typically.

Dems got caught napping in 16 cos we all thought this unwiped asshole had no chance. Now we have three years of living that Hell.

The Dems could try to compel Bolton to testify, right? Why don't they?

bolton is able and willing to take them to court to avoid doing it, which would take a long time

Why don't they?

My best understanding of that is that Bolton has already declared he would drag the matter into the courts, where it most certainly would not yet be adjudicated by the time the Senate holds its trial.

The Democrats' possible counter strategy that I've heard mentioned (unofficially) makes good sense to me, which is that Bolton will be called as a witness during the impeachment trial, where Chief Justice Roberts will preside. The presumption is that Roberts will be able to adjudicate it on the spot by a ruling from "the bench". If Bolton has already challenged his earlier subpoena in a lower court prior to the trial, Roberts could let himself off the hook and plead that the matter is already under judicial review and he should not interfere in a pending case.

yes, I think he already told them he would sue them if they did

Articles of impeachment: as early as tomorrow morning

Geez, I hope before they release the bill they have someone to double-check their work who hasn't been working on two hours of sleep for days.

They probably just hired a broke student on Craigslist to write it for them.

On climate change I'm afraid that them moving past outright denial isn't necessarily any kind of progress on the issue. It's getting to where outright denial is becoming politically untenable and I'm convinced that they long ago mapped out their future strategy of morphing from 'it isn't happening' to 'it's too late to do anything about it/it doesn't matter what we do cause China and India'.

The only connection I see between progress on impeachment and climate change is that both involve disinformation campaigns initiated by the political lackeys of energy oligarchs. (Which may tie in with a halfassed theory I'm working on involving George Orwell's relationship with the USSR.)

we're only a few years from "climate change is real...and liberals SECRETLY CAUSED IT AND TRIED TO COVER IT UP". so yeah, viborg otm

Yes that was actually the exact Orwell quote I had in mind.

lmao what the fuck is this

“hey you’re bringing your briefcase today for your nationally televised impeachment hearing right?”

“no no i’ll be fine with this.”pic.twitter.com/Uw27J337ra

— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) December 9, 2019

i gotta respect that, briefcases are lame as shit

On climate change I'm afraid that them moving past outright denial isn't necessarily any kind of progress on the issue. It's getting to where outright denial is becoming politically untenable

Office buildings are being evacuated in Sydney because the fire alarms won't stop going off. the Prime Minister says it's "not the time" to discuss whether climate change is involved, is approving more coal mines, refuses to meet with firefighters or allot emergency services any emergency funding, but is pushing one piece of legislation today: to make it legal again to refuse employment or services to gay and trans people

lol we're all gonna die

That's right

good morning!!

lol this is a new one

Read the Transcripts! “us” is a reference to USA, not me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019

I think I tried something like this in 4th grade, "oh oh you said DUE Friday, I thought it was DO Friday..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFELNIpeTjY

it depends what the meaning of us is

Pelosi has literally scheduled back-to-back press conferences to announce articles of impeachment against Trump and then support for his trade deal.

This is insane. What is the message here pic.twitter.com/QGlHjM7JOK

— Will Stancil (@whstancil) December 10, 2019

was thinking about this, because it does seem intentional. i guess the message is "we [democrats] are not obstructionists who are against everything the president does - we are working with him wherever we can bla bla bla" and/or countering the republican talking point that nothing is getting done in congress because of the democrats' obsession with impeachment

yeah seems obvious. Whether it works is another matter.

Of course, there hasn't been much attempt at bipartisan compromise on the many, many bills passed by the house, so I guess that plan only works in one direction.

seems like compartmentalization to a silly degree

the president is illegitimate; his NAFTA replacement is p much a matter of putting his name on something

I think it will be taken in the spirit it was intended and that the GOP will tip their cap to their coworkers across the aisle. They may not agree with them, but dammit they have to respect them.

was thinking about this, because it does seem intentional. i guess the message is "we [democrats] are not obstructionists who are against everything the president does - we are working with him wherever we can bla bla bla" and/or countering the republican talking point that nothing is getting done in congress because of the democrats' obsession with impeachment

brilliant move Nancy, now Republicans are sure to never use that criticism again

the neverending Dem wimp factor

Anytime you temper your response in an attempt to deflect GOP criticism, you walk into their trap and you lose.

What are they going to do, hold up the deal? This is a no-brainer. Get out in front of it, take credit b4 they do.

In general I'd say there are ways to attempt to take the wind out of their sails. However letting them drag you into their narratives by arguing their talking points directly is definitely getting caught in their trap.

Well, I suppose she could potentially sell it as a Dem win for the election. "Trump wanted to tax Canadian toilet imports, but we talked him out of it" or whatever.

truly a gamechanger

"Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, and President Blind Pig has found a trade deal. That'll do, pig."

In an interview with ABC News, Wray declared there was “no indication” that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. And then he went a step further: He urged people to be savvier consumers of news.Not to put too fine a point on it, but he’s basically saying he doesn’t want them listening to the president of the United States.

“We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election,” Wray said, adding: “Well, look, there’s all kinds of people saying all kinds of things out there. I think it’s important for the American people to be thoughtful consumers of information and to think about the sources of it and to think about the support and predication for what they hear.”

letting them drag you into their narratives by arguing their talking points directly

this isn't a narrative or a talking point though, it's an immensely complex hemispheric trade deal they've working on for a long time

Trump is going to tout the deal no matter what, why not deprive him of the "do-nothing Democrats" line?

Well, he sure can't use it now! What a frustrating development for him.

I know it's like when Liz shut down the whole "Pocahontas" thing and he's never said it since

He said it a couple of days ago.

Republican: That rotten democrat keyed my car!
Democrat: (supplies the in-depth results of a year-long investigation which proves beyond all doubt that they were not the party responsible for keying that car)
Republican: Just what I'd expect from a no-good, car-keying democrat!

xp Exactly.

I'm loving the subtly variegated shades of irony this morning.

xxp I shouldn't say "deprive"—of course he'll keep saying it—but at least they're providing a counternarrative that they are in fact legislating

there are a lot of people who don't understand how many bills the house has passed and have been convinced the impeachment process has taken over the entire agenda

I don't believe this group^ is 100% MAGA

There's a very large portion of Americans who don't understand how Congress works and sees its failings as just a general problem with politicians rather than the partisan obstructionism that it really is.

yes

it's been an essential component of the GOP playbook for twenty years to wreck the workings of government enough so that when Dems take one of the two chambers and/or the presidency the GOP can blame the cleanup as part of the Failings of Gummint.

I sort of have the impression that Democrats are voting for this trade deal because it's good policy that's likely to help insulate the people they represent from Trump's insane "who kissed my ass suffiicently hard this week" approach to global trade. Yes Trump will assert it as a victory. And if they didn't pass it he would assert whatever crazy shit he did instead as a victory. That is all Trump does! The people who are inclined to believe it are going to believe it!

The Dems should counter his Do-Nothing Dems claims by calling themselves the Can't-Do-Nothing Dems, and then blaming the Republicans for being dicks. Just offer the litany of "things that would benefit you that would get passed or happen if it weren't for those assholes."

dems should call themselves the 49er Joe Montanas, and then call the republicans the Arizona Dbags

I think we could maybe just dispense altogether with diplomacy when discussing the GOP and maybe describe them as the overtly- and intentionally-malignant force they are to everyone below a particular income bracket (and, well, I guess anyone who values a livable planet).

Yeah, I wonder how far off we are from someone during a debate just calling the Republicans full of shit assholes.

cage match, no subs, no backsies

xp people do that, but then they get escorted out while everyone else in the room pretends to not notice what's happening

Judiciary releases impeachment articles profoundly flawed by the fact that they will be practically meaningless to those who don't understand the highly complex argument about why the national security of the United States requires giving military aide to Ukraine; and 1/2

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) December 10, 2019

...highly offensive to those who understand the argument but disagree. This in an explicit attempt to make them as understandable, consensusual, and politically galvanizing as possible. This is truly a token of how out-of-touch Democratic Party leaders in Washington are.

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) December 10, 2019

cage match, no subs, no backsies

We already have a wrestling heel as president. Going full UFC (with free KFC) would only expand the electorate, imo.

I don't understand Perlstein's point.

I'm not sure I do either. He has been pretty much anti how the Dems have been handling this for weeks.

Similar to O’Heir’s I think. By making this about Ukraine it’s confusing to a lot of voters. Maybe he’d rather they went after him for emoluments stuff instead.

Perlstein's point is stupid, the national security argument is there to embarass/persuade GOP Senators. The general public won't gaf.

This is the simplest case they can make, that's why they've focused on it

Oh wait, I get it now. I misread "in" as "is," which made me think that his second sentence contradicted the first.

abuse of power and obstruction of justice come down to things that the president did which damaged national security. and why did they damage national security? because they resulted in funding being withheld from ukraine. and why is that bad for national security? that's where perlstein's tweet comes in. most americans have no idea where ukraine is, and/or think maybe it is part of russia. americans have no fucking clue, in general. and then there are people who do know about ukraine/russia and disagree that we should be militarily supporting ukraine (that's a far smaller number)

counterpoint: americans during watergate had no clue what was going on either. we may all have globbed onto the idea that nixon was trying to interfere with elections, but the mess of proceedings and exposes over the next year or two were very complex. to this day, most people don't know why nixon was impeached, in the end.

xps

I kinda agree. The people trying to make this confusing would be doing it no matter what the impeachment was about. I understand that US-Ukraine politics isn’t something most people gaf about but bribery and election tampering seem to be the most unassailable reasons for impeachment that exist.

obnoxious pedant voice: nixon was not impeached

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n35wAjB_u78/T1G-sL_peBI/AAAAAAAABJc/UZc0x2bI0M8/s1600/Caveman+Lawyer+Jury.png

yeah. i can understand perlstein's point, but what is the more obvious set of charges that he recommends that would be more viscerally understood by americans?

xp dr casino ugh, i do that all the time. but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

On climate change I'm afraid that them moving past outright denial isn't necessarily any kind of progress on the issue. It's getting to where outright denial is becoming politically untenable

Update: the PM has ruled out any emergency funding because the firefighters “want to be there.”

For anyone not following, there are over 100 wildfires in two states, many of which have been burning for a month. Over five million acres of bushland and 700 homes have been destroyed. The air quality in Australia’s most populous city is E L E V E N times above “hazardous” level, and fires to the north of it have joined into a 60-km-long “megablaze.”

Climate change denial is working just fine for the Prime Minister, who attends a pentecostal / prosperity gospel megachurch, and has a personal QAnon adviser.

(At the time Ukraine were trying to negotiate around the Biden / Burisma demand, this PM attempted to quid pro quo bringing his pastor, who funded conversion camps for lesbian teens and covered up his own pastor /father’s multinational child molestation for years, along on his White House visit.)

i believe perlstein's thesis is they should throw everything at him, maximalist charges, because 1) they won't impeach him again 2) the overhwelming maximalist "this man is a huge crook" blunderbuss case is easier to make than the "this specific set of acts is a high crime" case.

they (the democrats) won't vote to impeach him again because that's a political impossibility from their POV.

but also 3) the senate won't vote to remove, so they may as well throw it all out there. he calls their current strategy "narrow bore"

I just heard a smart liberal say the very least this inquiry will provide a check going forward on Trump using state power to sabotage his enemies. I think that's goofytown. The calamity of the narrow-bore impeachment strategy is... 1/4.

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) November 14, 2019

At least they could include obstruction of justice articles based on the Mueller Report, since Mueller already did all the leg work for them and tied it all up in a neat package with a ribbon and handed it to Congress, saying "here's a little something you may want to impeach him for, 'cuz my hands are tied".

if only mueller would have actually said that

FLASH POLL

which % is higher:

% of americans who know where ukraine (anywhere within 2000 miles of it)
% of americans who understood why the mueller report didn't say that trump committed a crime

i know a lot of americans are dumb but surely the first of those two, cmon

i think perlstein has in mind the obvious petty corruption stuff rather than the mueller stuff?

if only mueller would have actually said that

Aimless is barely paraphrasing tbf

lmfao

NEWS: A small group of Democrats are floating censuring Trump instead of impeaching him.

About a dozen moderates met on Monday to discuss the idea. Some have also been reaching out to House Rs to gauge support.

w/ @MZanonahttps://t.co/0WbRqlNt8c

— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) December 10, 2019

That is a terrible idea that sets a terrible precedent

Cool, like half-assed pet owners squeaking out a feeble 'no, down' when their dog starts humping a neighbor's leg. Should prove very effective!

fuckin moderates

and all dudes

apologies if this has been covered but good to see harris getting back to business
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/stephen-miller-kamala-harris-senators-letter-white-nationalist_n_5ded8571e4b00563b8534265

I'm with Josh Marshall--the Dems shouldn't be trained monkeys doing ever more elaborate tricks for a Senate audience that has folded its arms and refuses to be impressed. It's wasted effort and it does make the dems look weak. The point isn't to change Republicans' minds, which is impossible--the point is to demonstrate that the Republicans are unwilling to put any bounds on his power or behavior. That's about the best the Dems can do right now.

President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:

(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.

(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees — in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.

(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees — in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

they left out bolton

goofytown

looking forward to perlstein's upcoming book about the trump era

at the rate he's working through GOP presidential history we may all be living in Waterworld by the time he gets to it.

rebuttal: waterworld will actually be good for the world, not bad. we need water to live

(Ben Garrison takes notes furiously for his next cartoon.)

water water everywhere and you have to flush ten fifteen times

it seems like as i get older and older, i have to flush more times. must be a problem with water pressure laws and the epa

Have to wonder how many of the ten-to-fifteen were because he was unwittingly attempting to flush his drooping, wizened scrote after his boys had sunk to the bottom of the bowl.

^hurtling toward the borderline of very bad fanfic

how ironic that an Old Lunch post would make me regurgitate my old lunch

speaking of Old Lunch, here comes mine

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Tuesday, December 10, 2019 6:42 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/rookie-cop/2868167

http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040416/040416_campaign_daily_vlarge5p.grid-4x2.jpg

they left out bolton
― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone)

Bolton wasn't subpoenaed.

parties that are not organized along ideological lines are useless; the 'moderate' Dems can gtfo

at least the Republicans figured this out and all turned into cavepeople

If the Dems can't muster the votes for impeachment, they are well and truly fucked

um

House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they want.

President Trump's re-election is 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. pic.twitter.com/O7o02S26nS

— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 10, 2019

If the Dems can't muster the votes for impeachment, they are well and truly fucked

they overwhelmingly have the votes, only 2 Dems are on the record as opposing it. The "moderates" referenced above don't even have the 18 necessary to pass the procedural blocks they would need to throw up.

TBF, there's nothing stopping them from throwing up anyway.

*VLTF*

Lemieux thinks the trade vote after the articles of impeachment announcement was the right thing to do:

Politically, the passage of USMCA will almost certainly have the same material impact most of the other political events that have happened since Trump was elected have had — i.e. none. Trump’s approval ratings are incredibly stable and a trade deal coverage of which will be quickly drowned our by impeachment is not going to change that. If the deal is good for labor on the merits, and labor groups themselves at least think it is, then passing it is the right thing. And I really don’t understand how so many people who understand how inane the Halperin/Cillizza school of punditry is will turn around and assess everything House Dems do through a lens of completely baseless speculation about MESSAGING.

Also:

Among the biggest victories was an agreement to remove intellectual property protections for the pharmaceutical industry, which Democrats warned could undermine efforts to make health care more affordable. Democrats also persuaded the White House to strengthen the deal’s enforcement provisions, and obtained commitments to ensure Mexico is adhering to labor reforms.

Those changes were critical to winning the support of labor unions, including the influential AFL-CIO, which endorsed the revised pact just moments before Ms. Pelosi’s announcement.

In fact, the deal addressed so many of the Democrats’ concerns that some Republicans appeared skeptical of the final agreement and suggested that Mr. Lighthizer had given away too much.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, voiced concern that Mr. Lighthizer had potentially spent more time talking with House Democrats than Republicans on the final product. And Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania and one of the most ardent critics of the deal, railed against both the original deal and the new changes, including the removal of the pharmaceutical provision.

“It’s clearly moved way to the left,” Mr. Toomey told reporters. “It seemed to be just a one-way direction in the direction of Democrats.”

just a one-way direction in the direction of Democrats... whose votes will be absolutely vital to passing the implementing legislation. But, of course, crafting the agreement in a way that allows it to pass and take effect instead of being thrown in the trash is a small consideration compared to bitching about the Democrats.

It has to get through the Senate first, right? And idiot might still not sign it.

Sure. My point is I didn't get the complaints earlier today about the announcement of this trade deal. I said to a friend on his FB page that this was exactly the kind of "optics" twaddle that my most anti-Dem friends crow denounce. Of course it may not go anywhere -- so what? If the deal's good for American workers, why the hell wouldn't you promote it?

xp i agree with perlstein

the democrats should have presented a calvalcade of charges. it can all be connected anyway, in some kind of RICO way. he is essentially corrupt and is using the office for personal gain.

It has to get through the Senate first, right? And idiot might still not sign it.

OK, now explain how THAT will look bad for Democrats...they take the one thing King Asshole really, really wants and turn it into a poison pill he rejects, in an election year.

the naming of the FBI investigation Crossfire Hurricane seems really corny. Were the FBI trying to make themselves look cool by naming things after 47 year old Rolling Stones songs?

Special guest investigation namer: Martin Scorsese

Xpost sounds like a Stevie Ray Vaughn song

President Trump will sign an executive order defining Judaism as a nationality, not just a religion, thus bolstering the Education Department's efforts to stamp out "Boycott Israel" movements on college campuses https://t.co/0avw7eseMc

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) December 10, 2019

OK, now explain how THAT will look bad for Democrats...they take the one thing King Asshole really, really wants and turn it into a poison pill he rejects, in an election year.

If you're not speaking rhetorically, Asshole has done this more than once, iirc: cheerlead certain developments, but by the time it gets to his desk changes his mind (or has his mind changed), campaigns against it, and rejects it, usually while crossing his arms like an angry toddler. He doesn't give a shit.

I know...but it's hard to see how that's bad for Democrats, unless you're Chris Cilizza.

This whole Judaism as a nationality thing is really disturbing. What if I don't want to be considered a different nationality other than American? Do I have a choice? I don't personally want to be associated with Israel at all.

Can he just declare anything a nationality at will?

xpost Everything is bad for the Democrats, always.

it's very odd. israeli and jewish are not the same thing.

if students were saying they wanted to boycott jewish businesses i would have an enormous problem with that. but boycotting israel, while still in my view not so great, is really different.

There are other places to debate this, and other people better at debating it, but while I agree with you, the BDS movement specifically is as I understand it tied to certain more extreme anti-Israel ideas than divestment, not to mention the conspicuousness of Israel getting more or less uniquely singled out for boycott, as opposed to any of the many human rights violating, international law flouting countries.

The bullshit of course is not in that debate, but in Asshole changing the terms of the debate exclusively so that he and his fellow assholes can push their wrongheaded, vindictive policies.

I don't think it's just about that debate though. Feels like a step towards revoking American citizenship.

luv2live in this glorious gilded age

eema Verma who, as a senior figure in the Trump administration, has made it more difficult for poor Americans to access health coverage, has filed a claim of $47,000 for the loss of her luggage while on a three-day work trip.

According to Politico, Verma filed the claim on 28 August 2018 after having her luggage stolen while giving a speech in San Francisco. Her expenses included 20 pieces of jewellery, which sounds reasonable for a three day-work trip – if you are Snoop Dogg.

She had originally estimated the cost of those pieces at $20,000, but came back with the higher $43,065 price tag after visiting a jeweler three weeks after the theft. Because sometimes you’re just that rich that you forget about that extra 20 grand you dropped at the jewelers.

Verma is the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is responsible for Medicare, the US health insurance program for seniors and Medicaid, the program for low-income Americans.

The jewellery claim included 11 pairs of earrings, five necklaces and three pendants. In evidence that shows money does not equal class, one of those pendants was this Ivanka Trump gold, prasiolite and diamond pendant, which looks like it was picked by the claw machine in an arcade.

The government spends approximately $5,700 per Medicaid patient. That means that the bill she tried to get the taxpayer to foot (the CMS only granted a $2,852.40 reimbursement) is roughly equivalent to what the government spends on eight Medicaid patients yearly.

You may be wondering what she was doing with all that jewellery. Swapping out weights in the gym for travel-friendly lifting? Not quite – according to a CMS spokesperson, Verma takes a large collection of jewelry when she travels, because she “travels to Washington DC from Indiana each week to work at CMS.”

It really feels like we're finally encroaching on that moment when we collectively realize that there's a whole lot more of us than there are of them.

let's fucking hope so

Does it? I'd say there are way more apathetic people than those who give a shit.

xp

Yeah, I fantasize about that happening all the time, but probably nothing more than a fantasy given all the technology that enables the police state.

Would certainly welcome a Get Out/The Purge style film except about class where lower classes leading The Purge are the heroes. NB: I have never seen The Purge.

They could all wear Bernie masks. Chilling.

not to mention the conspicuousness of Israel getting more or less uniquely singled out for boycott, as opposed to any of the many human rights violating, international law flouting countries.