US Politics January 2019: we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger

Hmm, number one person suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome isss

So, a bad year for him?

the real trump derangement syndrome is the friends we made along the way

so anyway I didn't watch those 2016 "debates" just as none of you should have, but didn't they lead to HRC's telltale "why aren't I 30 points ahead" hubris?

maybe literally say "you're a diseased animal" to the asshole, as long as we're never going back to politesse

#PeaceIsOurProfession
We're gonna get real Kubrickian this year
― jmm, Tuesday, January 1, 2019 8:41 AM (two hours ago)

I'm pretty sure Kubrick & Co took this verbatim from... the Pentagon

things haven't changed THAT much

He did you complain about the deplorables thing being “elitist” at the time?

Ultimately we need a machine that regularly produces Senators like Brown and Warren more than we need a machine that elects one of them president once

— Italian Alex Pareene (@pareene) December 31, 2018

re: debates w trump and the people who support trump i often think of this quote from edouard louis in a guardian interview a couple of years ago:

Silence has to be a part of our progress. We have to put silence at the centre of politics today. Stop responding to the questions, stop letting them control the language, the debate, the agenda. I hear some argue 'it’s better to be open about these things. If you are racist and hide your racism, then you’re a hypocrite.' I say no, it’s better you keep quiet.

To me, democracy is not about saying everything. Some things, like racism, antisemitism, shouldn’t be issues, they shouldn’t be talked about. Some subjects should be considered obsolete, and yes, let’s shut down the debate because they are obsolete. I grew up as a queer child in a small village. Lots of gay children in this situation suffer the same things: being threatened, beaten up. When I published my book in Paris, some said, ‘Well, if you’d grown up in a bourgeois milieu, people would have thought the same thing, they just wouldn’t have hit you.’ Are they joking? I would rather that, than being constantly beaten up for being queer. Of course I’d rather people weren’t racist or homophobic, but if they are they can keep it to themselves. Just shut up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html

ni dieu ni maître!

Yes. Racism, homophobia, hate in general is more about what you say and do than how you think. A nation of people who have learned not to publicly express or act on their prejudices is vastly preferable — and, in practice, vastly less hateful in the ways that matter most — to a nation where people feel free to act on them.

silent bob for president!

The month before the 2018 midterms, a thousand theaters screened “The Trump Prophecy,” a film that tells the story of Mark Taylor, a former firefighter who claims that God told him in 2011 that Donald Trump would be elected president.

What?

"Congratulations to President
@JairBolsonaro who just made a great inauguration speech - the U.S.A. is with you!"

trump tweet, just now

Nice

Seriously though the thing j posted

The identification of the 45th president with an ancient Middle Eastern potentate isn’t a fringe thing. “The Trump Prophecy” was produced with the help of professors and students at Liberty University, whose president, Jerry Falwell Jr., has been instrumental in rallying evangelical support for Mr. Trump. Jeanine Pirro of Fox News has picked up on the meme, as has Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, among many others.

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/8/17941066/the-trump-prophecy-liberty-university-christian-nationalism

The Trump administration has used this very trope. In June, Attorney General Jeff Sessions used Romans 13:1-7 — a controversial verse that demands that Jewish Christians resist political action against the Roman Empire — to argue that the Trump administration had the political and Biblical right to enforce family separation policies for migrants. Trump’s top evangelical advisors, such as prosperity gospel preacher Paula White and First Baptist Dallas preacher Robert Jeffress, have frequently implied that Trump’s authority is virtually unlimited because his presidency is divinely mandated.

Maybe i am dumb. I didn’t know about any of this.

I knew he had a strong base among evangelicals. Didnnot think they considered him a divine king.

these fucks simply can not die soon enough

This is horrifying

It also seems extremely blasphemous. Where are the christians speaking out against this?

who had 13 hours in the treeshy's first horrifying epiphany of 2019 poll

Lol at least i’m not in the death pool this year

where's the tax returns?

i’m still compiling my ballot tbf xp

Did not think they considered him a divine king.

There are definitely some evangelicals who long for a theocracy, as the correct and biblically ordained form of government. There's even a fancy term for their movement that escapes me atm, something with 'dominion' embedded in it, I think. They'd respond very favorably to such propaganda.

I don't believe that sort of craziness is widely accepted among evangelicals, yet, but you can never hurt yourself with evangelicals by quoting some bible verse that appears to bolster your position. And there aren't a lot of bible verses that endorse checks and balances between the three branches of a democratically-elected and constitutionally-based government.

dominionism

Wondering suddenly if Mittens ran for senate just as a launchpad to primary Trump. Thinking it’s more likely he runs in ‘24, why would he stick his neck out

In the meantime, I am in SW DC, one block from the National Mall, and the usual torrent of humanity is more like a trickle. A restaurant in this building is closed for the duration, and another has drastically cut back it's hours.

A primary challenge to trump would fail.

Good morning!

I would be interested in seeing tax returns fwiw

A primary challenge to trump would fail.

― Trϵϵship,

Whats the earliest/latest this could happen? I'd have ruled it out as impossible even just a month or so ago but now I'm no longer sure

hate to see a good thread title go waste

The truth is @MittRomney lacked the ability to save this nation. @realDonaldTrump has saved it. Jealously is a drink best served warm and Romney just proved it. So sad, I wish everyone had the courage @realDonaldTrump had. https://t.co/mbxoTqbSX6

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) January 2, 2019

It will fail, of course, but I would still root for it as a step towards schism between the semi-sane Republicans and the death cult.

""semi-sane Republicans"" <----sorry, who?

The ones who just want a feudal plutocracy, not the ones cheering on Biblical apocalypse.

pretty sure that is also a strong path to apocalypse

If you can trap Jeff Flake on an elevator he temporarily grows a conscience

But tomorrow he’s dying and getting reborn in the private sector, so not much time there

For Romney, that's not bad.

^^^ centrist

cold. blooded.

Blood isn’t thicker than maga https://t.co/2EDgjUC7XQ

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) January 2, 2019

Romney editorial does seem to be a shot across the bow but I doubt he's gonna go for the primary in 2020. Let Kasich take that bullet and then run in 2024 like the loser he is.

Today in "Jesus, what a pathetic asshole", note the poster on the table for the Situation Room meeting between Trump and Congressional leaders:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv7Ap5jWwAEo0AU.jpg

Can a dog shit on that ASAP

that isn't the situation room. guess they realized they couldn't get cameras in there.

the situation room isn't for meetings between the prez and congress

right, but that's where they announced the meeting would be:

The gathering Wednesday afternoon should be different, at least publicly. It is being held in the White House’s secure “Situation Room,” and the media will not be invited for any portion of it, according to guidance sent from the White House.

maybe this isn't that meeting, maybe they're full of shit.

Yeah, it's possible the photo was misidentified on Twitter. It's rare, but that does happen...

like watching a hill of red ants eat a dead tapir

lmao

Don't besmirch ants, they are wonderful creatures that play a crucial role in their environment.

would happily toss an anthill on Kasich and Christie

need a p big anthill

This is a thing Trump said today: "So I didn't see the report from the intelligence. When you read it, it's a lot different than it was covered on in the news."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 31, 2019

long, very small print

🍿🍿🍿 pic.twitter.com/nKyvJU8KPC

— Richard Rubin (@RichardRubinDC) January 31, 2019

tax returns?!

Now it's been said.

any update on the Republicans' total blocking/obstruction of the entire House Intelligence Committee? cuz that seems like a major problem to me.

I couldn't follow what was happening there tbh

it's over https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-gop-intelligence-committee-trump-russia-1312110

ranking member Devin Nunes

those adjectives will never stop delighting me

xp thank you, caek

xp just clicked this thread and read “it’s over” and my first thought was that trump died

the split second sense of relief

and then disappointment

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/590954de6552fa0be682cd5f/16:9/w_1200,h_630,c_limit/Vertigo-465.jpg

whoah I had no idea we were just 1 state away from ratifying the ERA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/this-woman-just-derailed-the-equal-rights-amendment-yet-again/2019/01/31/9e32ec22-2551-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html?utm_term=.b8896840d2fd

oh for fuck's sake

shouldn't we have a national conversation about the ERA on sean hannity and justice with judge jeanine before we go ahead with this?

"But then a tiny subcommittee in Richmond — the House Privileges and Elections subcommittee — voted along party lines to block the amendment from reaching the House floor after heavy lobbying from Cobb, president of the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia."

this is such a groovy time to be alive

Well ready that didn’t just piss me the fuck off.. nope not at all

Reading*

good morning!

Huh

Senate investigators have reportedly obtained records showing that Donald Trump Jr.'s phone calls ahead of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were not with his father, as Democrats have long suspected.

CNN reported Thursday citing three sources with knowledge of the matter that records obtained by the Senate Intelligence Committee show Trump Jr. was speaking with two business associates.

The network said it had not confirmed the identity of the associates or the content of the calls. The associates were not named in the report, which said that the information about the blocked number emerged recently.

Eh, could be.

Maybe. But why did he just not say that?

do innocent people ever talk this way

Just out: The big deal, very mysterious Don jr telephone calls, after the innocent Trump Tower meeting, that the media & Dems said were made to his father (me), were just conclusively found NOT to be made to me. They were made to friends & business associates of Don. Really sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2019

his father (me)

he really does think everyone is as dumb as him

him bragging about this is so fucking weird that I almost wonder if this is fake news

whoah I had no idea we were just 1 state away from ratifying the ERA

There's some question about whether the recent ratifications actually mean anything in terms of the amendment's passage. The original deadline for ratification passed decades ago. Arguably the amendment would have to be reintroduced, and all the states would have to vote again.

from the new NYT interview:

“I lost massive amounts of money doing this job,” he said. “This is not the money. This is one of the great losers of all time. You know, fortunately, I don’t need money. This is one of the great losers of all time. But they’ll say that somebody from some country stayed at a hotel. And I’ll say, ‘Yeah.’ But I lose, I mean, the numbers are incredible.”

Would be interesting to get him to define what he views as the role of President in depth and see how damning that was in itself. I thought it was supposed to be viewed as duty/responsibility much more than prestige.
Still don't get what exactly the long term politicians who slavishly follow him see in him. Does he exude pheromones or something? Comes across as a bumbling idiot from a distance.
Well hopefully when he goes he'll take a lot of them with him. Just hope there's going to be something left in his aftermath.

He’s like a primary school kid who gets elected class president for a month and thinks that means he. An order people to do things.

That Trump tweet is like the least unexpected thing ever. He cannot wait to point out a damning accusation which has been seemingly disproven. Because those things completely exonerate him of all wrongdoing dontchuknow.

good morning!

I'd be content with "Really sad!" as the subtitle to the February thread.

The great losers line is good too

US Politics February 2019: This is one of the great losers of all time.