US Politics, November 2019: These people are truly sick.

According to the book, the president shouted at an aide who was scribbling in a notebook during a meeting, “What the (expletive) are you doing?” He added, “Are you (expletive) taking notes?” The aide apologized and closed the notebook...

well we can at least be certain Anonymous has seen The Wire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBdGOrcUEg8

Trump on the South Lawn tells reporters that he will release a second transcript, @HansNichols reports

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) November 8, 2019

but the first one was so perfect

lmao

The call was perfect. The transcript is being revised (read: set in Comic Sans) to meet that level of perfection.

I'm going to guess that he won't actually release anything and MSNBC hosts will be asking why for months

Needs more Sharpie

Any trump will be toxic outside of conservative media after this presidency is over. You wouldn’t see jr or ivanka on the view imo

― treeship., Friday, November 8, 2019 7:59 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I really can't predict which way this thing is gonna go. My gut is that Trumpism has activated/inflamed a significant bloc of the GOP base that is not easily going to embrace "reasonable" conservatism anytime soon. The whole project of conservatism for these people is owning libs and culture wars and macho posturing. They're gonna call anyone less vitrolic than Trump a cuck. Maybe the party can't find someone to capably fill that void but there's going to be a wide open lane for another insane carnival barker.

More likely is that the GOP, with its usual prestidigitation, will embrace Trumpism while pretending, like with Bush II, he never existed.

the Beltway press, with its usual cynicism, will help the party put its mask on.

It will be interesting to see how loving an embrace it will be if the GOP gets decimated at the polls in 2020. Can't wait to see how many people revise their history such that they were actually secret Mother Night-ing Never Trumpers all along.

Also, 'reasonable' conservatism is mostly that the rich should have all the money and everyone else should suffer and die, and that message isn't really that popular.

a significant bloc of the GOP base that is not easily going to embrace "reasonable" conservatism anytime soon. The whole project of conservatism for these people is owning libs and culture wars and macho posturing. They're gonna call anyone less vitrolic than Trump a cuck

For me this is one of the only pieces of potential good news on the horizon!

Of course there are many hideous people in the GOP. But none with Trumpian levels of id-based pulling power, AFAICT.

The chud gang is not going to embrace Pence 2024. You should hear them rail about how disappointed they were with RINO McCain and Milquetoast Romney. Yes, they are R partisans, but the energy is different. Post-Trump, they will probably still vote GOP in a knee-jerk fashion, but they will never again be as energized, or feel as validated, or be as loud about their tribal bullshit.

I want them to die frustrated and disappointed. If they do so while clutching their red hats, wondering what might have been if MACHO HE-MEN like themselves had prevailed, who cares. The rest of us will move forward without them.

one person i do worry about is Nikki Haley. in a weird spin on sexism i think she wouldn't be punished as much for not being a frothing-at-the-mouth loon as someone like Mittens or Kasich or whomever. I know the easy response is that the GOP would never support a woman at the national level but somehow I'm not convinced. plus she can tie herself to the Trump base if necessary because she served in his administration yet she managed to get out with her rep largely intact.

"Morning" Joe has already croaked his enthusiasm for her, proving his imbecility and gullibility and cynicism -- all at the same time.

none with Trumpian levels of id-based pulling power, AFAICT

The Rock

there's obv still gonna be awful Republican prez candidates but it'll really be hard to find anyone truly as awful a human as DT

they're all awful human beings if they believe being rich and white and male makes them God's chosen

there's obv still gonna be awful Republican prez candidates but it'll really be hard to find anyone truly as awful a human as DT

Gauntlet thrown down!

the President has been ordered by a judge to pay $2 mil fine for using charity funds for personal expenditures and it's barely a news story

if Obama had etc etc

I know the easy response is that the GOP would never support a woman at the national level

Son, ain't your elders ever made sure you heard tell of a lady that some called Sarah of Wasilla?

the one dude I worry about is that TX rep with the eye patch, Crenshaw or whatever. he's dumb as shit but the MAGA crowd loves him

yesterday I heard him going ham on someone asking if making govt. contractors sign anti-BDS pledges was against the 1st amendment

XP Yup. GOP kingmakers see Crenshaw as their AOC.

the President has been ordered by a judge to pay $2 mil fine for using charity funds for personal expenditures and it's barely a news story

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, November 8, 2019 11:20 AM (eleven minutes ago)

this would be a scandal of huge proportions at any other time with any other pres

plus he's pretty good at making idiotic bad faith arguments on Twitter which plays pretty well with the GOP base

Thanks for the PSL, @RollCall. pic.twitter.com/VEmFAZ25wu

— Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) November 6, 2019

totally normal dude accepting drinks from random strangers who know what you do for a living

this would be a scandal of huge proportions at any other time with any other pres

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Friday, November 8, 2019 11:33 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It’s super weird. I guess people were saying repub voters going forward will want offensive candidates. I wonder if they’ll want their candidate to be a criminal from now on too.

When being a Republican is outlawed, only outlaws will be Republicans

Yeah for every headline that goes like "OMG Trump has ignored norms" or "OMG Trump has bucked tradition" or "OMG Trump is hollowing out the experienced Federal workforce" or "OMG Trump is undermining our institutions"? My reaction is, like DUH.

That's exactly what he said he was going to do and he's kept his promise.That was his stated purpose. And it was the motivation for most of the votes he got. Most of his voters will acknowledge that shredding norms was, and is, his selling point. It is a feature, not a bug.

It would be silly and pollyannaish to now be like, "oh, but we didn't want THOSE norms shredded! We only wanted you to shred THESE norms!"

i feel like burisma type jobs always exist for these failkids, even when dads are revealed as faildads.

or in this case feeldads

xp (sorry, my viewable string ended way up on milo z's djtj post so my post above was, super xp now)

also, thanks to current events/the wire/commentary for explaining what it means when the boss insists nobody take notes, and what it means when the boss tells a mark "talk to (fixer guy name), talk to him" over and over.

Also, 'reasonable' conservatism is mostly that the rich should have all the money and everyone else should suffer and die, and that message isn't really that popular.

― Frederik B, Friday, November 8, 2019 9:51 AM

Do you know many poor white Americans? Cause they LOVE that message.

poor white americans have this fantasy that someday they're going to get rich too, though they're fuzzy on the details of how it might happen

keep brown ppl from getting rich first iirc

They're happy to take a sock on the arm as long as people of color get a broken jaw, and there are tens of millions of those fuckers out there.

it's going to be so amazing when Trump throws Don Jr under the bus:


The White House tried to distance the president from his son’s actions, despite Trump's repeated calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed.

The White House told reporter Yashar Ali that neither “the president nor any senior administration official was aware in advance that the president’s eldest son was going to tweet out the name of the alleged whistleblower.”

A defiant Don Jr. told Ali that the “outrage” over his outing of the purported whistleblower was “BS.”

The White House tried to distance the president from his son’s actions, despite Trump's repeated calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed.
The White House tried to distance the president from his son’s actions, despite Trump's repeated calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed.
The White House tried to distance the president from his son’s actions, despite Trump's repeated calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed.
The White House tried to distance the president from his son’s actions, despite Trump's repeated calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed.
The White House tried to distance the president from his son’s actions, despite Trump's repeated calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed.

maybe next time, Kendall Roy.

i ordered some pizza earlier. in fact, i ordered the pizza and demanded that my pizza arrive quickly on social media for the next 30 minutes. i tagged everyone i could think of.
and now you're telling me that the delivery person, who is also my son, is gonna show up at MY house, with the pizza **I** ordered, in 30 minutes? after i directly messaged my son and asked him to bring me my pizza that i ordered?

it goes without saying that i am distancing myself from my son's actions

He hardly even knows Don Jr.

I've said it before and again, going back up to poor white people.

My dad had multiple strokes and barely talks now. he can no longer work. He has gone bankrupt twice in the last 11 years, can barely afford his rent, and without me and my brother, he and my mother would likely be on their asses.

and after a very quiet afternoon where he hadn't spoken much, he saw a homeless person in the street and managed to say the first thing he said in over an hour, without stammering - "get a job!". and he complained about freeloaders, which sitting next to me, with zero sense of irony.

I love the man but he epitomizes the whole "I identify with rich folk so I am one even though I'm not" white person. my mother, on the other hand, has gotten fairly woke.

oh that is heartbreaking pathology

also sorry neanderthal

thank you. It especially stung because they have been coming to me for money since I was 18, not due to circumstances (both were always gainfully employed with decent paying jobs), but buying things they couldn't afford, living above their means, etc. so that now, when they have a legitimate reason tehy're struggling, they have no safety net.

to go through all that and still bite his thumb at homeless people really pisses me off.

wtf w this nonsense, they're more interested in a Constitutional legal argument being resolved than in whether or not Bolton actually testifies? Does he want to testify or not jfc

An attorney for former national security adviser John Bolton and former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman said Friday he is "dismayed" that his clients will not be be compelled to testify in the ongoing House impeachment inquiry after lawmakers declined to issue subpoenas.

Charles J. Cooper, whose clients declined to testify voluntarily, wrote in a letter to House General Counsel Douglas Letter obtained by The Hill that he had hoped to determine in court whether House subpoenas to testify or the White House's assertion of executive privilege took precedence.

"We are dismayed that the Committees have chosen not to join us in seeking resolution from the Judicial Branch of this momentous Constitutional question as expeditiously as possible," Cooper wrote. "It is important both to Dr. Kupperman and to Ambassador Bolton to get a definitive judgment from the Judicial Branch determining their Constitutional duty in the face of conflicting demands of the Legislative and Executive Branches."

"Dr. Kupperman stands ready, as does Ambassador Bolton, to testify if the Judiciary resolves the conflict in favor of the Legislative Branch’s position respecting such testimony," he added.

House Democrats had scheduled Bolton to appear on Thursday, but said they wouldn't issue him a subpoena after he declined to appear.

"Mr. Bolton would take us to court if we subpoenaed him," a House Intelligence Committee official said in a statement.

bolton likely actually believes unitary executive bullshit and while he respects rules enough to preserve his freedom, i imagine he would likely prefer both to avoid testifying and to have this type of executive privilege to be created/blessed by courts.