"He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation"

October 16, 2017 3:32 PM

Day 270: Season of war. [this is the U.S. politics thread.]

Lowlights:
Trump stops ACA payments, 18 states sue
Bannon threatens GOP primary challenges
Tillerson is "still intact"
Mueller has interviewed Priebus
Manafort Had $60 Million Relationship With a Russian Oligarch
Corker goes off

posted by Anonymous (2209 comments total)

And the bomb? What's up with the bomb?
posted by infini at 3:34 PM on October 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

Low point:

Bannon threatens GOP primary challenges

...disagree.
posted by schadenfrau at 3:36 PM on October 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

270 days in?! We’re 3/4 of the way through the first 1/4!!!
posted by Drumhellz at 3:36 PM on October 16, 2017 [51 favorites]

(And thank you for the new thread!)
posted by schadenfrau at 3:36 PM on October 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm noticing recently how my brain gets tired earlier in the day than it used to. My daily job schedule is easier on me than ever (work-at-home on my own pace), so it can't be that. Earlier today I was thinking about it: not enough sleep? Not drinking enough water? Need more exercise?

And then I saw this new thread and I'm like, "Oh yeah, it's 2017 and the world's a nightmare hellscape and there are people actually cheering it on. That's why I'm so tired by 3:30 in the afternoon."
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:37 PM on October 16, 2017 [165 favorites]

The bomb? It's set up.

(Love the minimalist decor of the place!)
posted by notyou at 3:37 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

The way things are going right now, "Eminem Hard-Liners Nail Kid Rock's Hands to the Doors of Mar-a-Lago" does not seem like it would be an unrealistic headline in 2020.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:38 PM on October 16, 2017 [71 favorites]

Nice use of the "hellscape" tag.
posted by mosk at 3:38 PM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

Because the alternative is too visually unsettling, all matters pertaining to Bannon are best observed under low light.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 3:39 PM on October 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Only a few weeks to the anniversary of election day. Remembering putting together this FPP while thinking, repeatedly "No, he can't, Brexit was the low point of the year, surely".

Last day of the remnants of innocence, that was. I'll be spending the anniversary of election day very off the grid.
posted by Wordshore at 3:40 PM on October 16, 2017 [48 favorites]

Part of me wants to call my mother to find out if she has recanted any of her eternal 100% support of Trump yet.

Part of me knows that I would end up making eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE noises into my phone and then smashing it.
posted by delfin at 3:45 PM on October 16, 2017 [53 favorites]

I don't know if I have enough in me to make it through three and a fourth more years of this. I already feel five to ten years older already.
posted by corb at 3:46 PM on October 16, 2017 [69 favorites]

Is Donald Trump Installing a Mole in the Mueller Probe?

In which the Patriot Act and Bush era Bybee memos allow Trump to directly access grand jury testimony through a designated DOJ lawyer not Rosenstien, without telling anyone.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:46 PM on October 16, 2017 [28 favorites]

Corker goes off

Corker pops off, surely.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:49 PM on October 16, 2017 [78 favorites]

Trump: All Your Base Are Belong to Us
posted by kirkaracha at 3:50 PM on October 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

Several months ago, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation, former chief strategist Steve Bannon told Trump that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment—the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the president. When Bannon mentioned the 25th Amendment, Trump said, “What’s that?” According to a source, Bannon has told people he thinks Trump has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term. - Vanity Fair
posted by jim in austin at 3:51 PM on October 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

Shameless self-link - mods please delete if it's inappropriate:

I forget whose idea inspired this originally, but I went ahead and did a writeup on the Trump Markov chain thing for the Baffler: Stochastic Trumpery.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:52 PM on October 16, 2017 [19 favorites]

Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, echoed something I've been feeling for the last several months:

"Nobody else would trust any U.S. administration to engage in any long-term negotiation, because the length of any commitment, the duration of any commitment from now on with any U.S. administration would be the remainder of the term of that president."

(via John Oliver and Face the Nation)

What freaks me out the most about this presidency is how it now lends perpetual lack of a sense of object permanence to ANYTHING involving any administration going forward. The next time the democrats win, everything Trump did will be undone. Back and forth. Forever. All trust and faith in any administration will effectively be undermined. The notion of government itself is being undermined. That's fucking scary.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 3:54 PM on October 16, 2017 [195 favorites]

Boy that lie about past Presidents not calling the families of fallen soldiers is not going over very well.

NYTimes Trump Falsely Claims Obama Didn’t Contact Families of Fallen Soldiers

“This is an outrageous and disrespectful lie even by Trump standards,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, posted on Twitter. “Also,” Mr. Rhodes added, “Obama never attacked a Gold Star family.”[...]

Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former senior aide to Mr. Obama, used even stronger language on Twitter, calling Mr. Trump’s statement a lie — along with an expletive — and describing him as a “deranged animal.”

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:54 PM on October 16, 2017 [113 favorites]

Lies. lies, etc. Krugman lists the lies about the GOP tax plan.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:55 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

So, our taxes will go down AND we'll have 10 times as many nukes? I feel richer AND safer!
posted by Marky at 4:00 PM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

CNN President Trump's mysterious absence from conservative talk radio

If there were ever a medium built for Trump -- besides Twitter -- talk radio would be it. But in his first eight months as president, Trump did not do a single interview on talk radio. [...]

Yet, since being inaugurated as president, Trump has shied away from appearing on radio programs. After this week, he will have made two forays onto talk radio -- and both of them came almost immediately after CNN contacted the White House to ask why he hadn't been speaking on the platform.[...]

"When he needed us, he was appearing on our shows all the time," Joyce Kaufman, a conservative talk show host in south Florida who strongly supported Trump in the 2016 election, told CNN. "Then it sort of dried up."

One theory is that he watches TV but doesn't listen to radio. The other theory is that some radio hosts won't be as friendly as they were during the campaign now they have seen him in action so to speak. "We are the people that got him elected. And we are tired of being lied to."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:05 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

Only 270.

sighs
posted by Fizz at 4:05 PM on October 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

‘A Soulless Coward’: Coach Gregg Popovich Responds to Trump

Coach Pop called me up after hearing the President’s remarks explaining why he hadn’t mentioned the four US soldiers killed in an ambush in Niger. Trump said, “President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.” Maybe it was bald-faced nature of this lie. Maybe it is Pop’s own history in the military, but the Coach clearly had to vent. He said, “I want to say something and please just let me talk and please make sure this is on the record.”

Here is what he expressed:

I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this President had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families, is so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.

At this point, Coach Pop paused, and I thought for a moment that perhaps he didn’t have the words and the conversation would end. Then he took a breath and said:

This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner–and to lie about how previous Presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers–is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House: unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this President should be ashamed because they know it better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.

Then he said, “Bye, Dave.” And that was it. Should be one hell of an NBA season.

posted by chris24 at 4:07 PM on October 16, 2017 [244 favorites]

The new Jane Mayer article in the New Yorker on Pence's rise is extraordinary, and she definitely does her trademark "Oh yeah, here is how deeply Koch has their claws inside this dude" thing. Well worth the read.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:12 PM on October 16, 2017 [27 favorites]

Then he said, “Bye, Dave.” And that was it. Should be one hell of an NBA season.

Hearing from people like Popovich is both uplifting and depressing. Uplifting, because non-political everyday folk with a platform are openly expressing their contempt for this President* and everything he says and does. Depressing, because there are so many, nearly 40% of, adults who still think he's a normal, competent POTUS. And, according to recent analyses by political analysts, this is all he needs to get reëlected.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:13 PM on October 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

I see your gangster-in-chief announced this is to be 'National Character Counts Week.' As a dotty old racist in decline, he's clearly forgotten anything he might have ever understood of morality or character, so maybe his aidesenablers misheard him banging on about getting bumped to the 280 limit on Twitter?
posted by MarchHare at 4:14 PM on October 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

Haw, MarchHare I had the same thought. Character counts?
posted by aspersioncast at 4:16 PM on October 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Then he said, “Bye, Dave.” And that was it. Should be one hell of an NBA season.

Dammit, Pop. If this is your way of getting me to start liking the Spurs, it’s working.

For those who don’t know, Popovich has a long history of speaking out like this.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:21 PM on October 16, 2017 [11 favorites]

House: Ratings Changes in 12 Districts as Democrats Gain Momentum
posted by jgirl at 4:23 PM on October 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

For those who don’t know, Popovich has a long history of speaking out like this.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:21 PM on October 16 [+] [!]

Well, I knew he was outspoken, but this was the first public comment I'd seen on politics. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:32 PM on October 16, 2017

The only positive thing, and it is anti-positive, yet, pulling the whites sheets off everyone, who had a prolonged tantrum over an African American president, we can see who they are, how many they are, and how they have hoodwinked our everything. Cowardice is the worst trait, of all. It creates monsters, armies of them. Now we can see them, but now they also can see themselves, echoed in extremist legislation, extremist acts, sickening hatred. Now they can see legions of us also seeing them. Maybe there will be change.
posted by Oyéah at 4:37 PM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

Only 270.

sighs

*puts envelope to turban*
*rips open envelope*
*blows into the envelope*
*takes out the card*

"Hillary on election night"
posted by Talez at 4:46 PM on October 16, 2017 [38 favorites]

The correct answer is "How many teeth do the combined users of the freerepublic.com forums have"
posted by delfin at 4:48 PM on October 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

oh god too soon
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:48 PM on October 16, 2017 [21 favorites]

Part of me wants to call my mother to find out if she has recanted any of her eternal 100% support of Trump yet.

I did this. Don't do this.
posted by zarq at 4:54 PM on October 16, 2017 [149 favorites]

We don't know how we're going to keep our business afloat if our health care costs balloon.
posted by doctornemo at 4:55 PM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

On the plus side, it looks like Newt Gingrich finally had that stroke which led to a late contender for own of 2017
posted by R.F.Simpson at 4:56 PM on October 16, 2017 [48 favorites]

presideent trtump nneeds to bee impeed - with hookers if we have to
posted by pyramid termite at 5:04 PM on October 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Is Donald Trump Installing a Mole in the Mueller Probe?

This is from Marcy "@emptywheel" Wheeler, an insightful nat sec legal analyst not given to hyperbole or paranoia, so when she raises a red flag on Brian Benczkowski, it's worth paying attention to. While the New Republic gave her decent column space, she had to use her blog to post this conclusion:

One thing didn’t make the cut, though it’s a key reason why I think it possible someone is trying to use this precedent to provide Trump with a mole on the investigation.

Viet Dinh was both the key author of the PATRIOT Act as well as the procedures implementing these sharing rules. Dinh is also the Kirkland & Ellis partner who asked Benczkowski to exercise the really poor judgment of overseeing an investigation for Alfa Bank while he was awaiting a likely DOJ appointment. “I’ve known Viet Dinh for twenty years,” Benczkowski explained during his confirmation hearing for why he represented Alfa Bank while potentially up for nomination to DOJ.

Benczkowski certainly said the right things about honoring Mueller’s work. But Dinh, a guy who had a key role in compromising Benczkowski with respect to the investigation just as he got nominated played a key role in the sharing rules that might make it possible.

As I say in the piece, we had better hope DOJ guards recusal concerns a lot more closely than they seem to have been doing.

Benczkowski was specifically helping Alfa-Bank with their lawsuit against Fusion GPS over the Steele Dossier, a legal manoeuvre that coincides with the pressure from Capitol Hill for Steele to reveal his sources and original client.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:05 PM on October 16, 2017 [29 favorites]

On the plus side, it looks like Newt Gingrich finally had that stroke which led to a late contender for own of 2017

oh my the replies:

Thickamaru Nara‏ @Aphrothighty
This joke will never ever get old

Andrew Reed‏ @reedrambles
And if it does, Newt will go find a younger one.
posted by numaner at 5:07 PM on October 16, 2017 [54 favorites]

Part of me wants to call my mother to find out if she has recanted any of her eternal 100% support of Trump yet.

While reading, take careful note of her sources. How many are friends of Trump. How many are profiting from this administration. How many have his ear. Consider the ways their selfish interests are better served by keeping him in office instead of Pence.

Now ask yourselves why they would happily give quotes to a reporter at a liberal-leaning magazine proclaiming how evil Pence is. How he's a pawn of the Kochs and a corporate shill. Stoking fears of a Right Wing fundamentalist President.

Everything they say may very well be true. But the messengers are devils quoting scripture.
posted by zarq at 5:08 PM on October 16, 2017 [19 favorites]

Politico, White House brushes off House investigators over aides' use of personal email

The White House brushed off a bipartisan request from House investigators for details of senior administration officials' use of private email and encrypted messaging apps for government work, including possible violations of federal record-keeping laws, a letter obtained by POLITICO shows.

In a terse letter to Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) — leaders of the House oversight committee — President Donald Trump's congressional liaison Marc Short declined to indicate whether any administration officials had used personal email accounts or messaging services, despite reports suggesting such communications were common in the West Wing.

"The White House and covered employees endeavor to comply with all relevant laws," Short wrote in a two-page reply delivered late last week and obtained Monday by POLITICO.
...
In a similarly brief letter, Short also declined to provide records in response to a separate inquiry by Gowdy and Cummings into the use of costly private air travel by top administration officials.

Well, as long as the White House "endeavor[s] to comply with all relevant laws," that should be good enough? Republicans were completely satisfied when Clinton said she tries to follow the law, right? BUT HER E—, whatever, noting matters.
posted by zachlipton at 5:08 PM on October 16, 2017 [43 favorites]

Politico, Renuka Rayasam, Undocumented pregnant girl in Texas tests Trump policy to stop abortions

The Trump administration is preventing an undocumented, pregnant teenager detained in a Brownsville refugee shelter from getting an abortion in a policy shift with big implications for hundreds of other pregnant, unaccompanied minors held in such shelters.

She is not the first to be stopped, according to advocates who work with undocumented teenagers.

For the last seven months, the Health and Human Services Department has intervened to prevent abortions sought by girls at federally funded shelters, even in cases of rape and incest and when the teen had a way to pay for the procedure. The agency has instead forced minors to visit crisis pregnancy centers, religiously affiliated groups that counsel women against having abortions, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, interviews with sources involved in the Brownsville case and those familiar with the agency’s policy.

In some cases, a senior HHS official has personally visited or called pregnant teens to try to talk them out of ending their pregnancies.

The ACLU is suing.
posted by zachlipton at 5:11 PM on October 16, 2017 [126 favorites]

I found this tweet from Delilia O'Malley particularly moving. Speaking truth to power.

.@realDonaldTrump When my brother was killed, Pres Bush listened while I screamed at him & then held me as I sobbed, you fat fucking liar.

Some of the replies demonstrate that there are those who have even less humanity than Trump.
posted by vac2003 at 5:14 PM on October 16, 2017 [168 favorites]

Ooo, is finally time for the "Dump Trump" bumpersticker?
posted by Mesaverdian at 5:14 PM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

I guess we should be happy there are still US politics.
posted by mazola at 5:21 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

Looking at the coverage of Bannon's speech, I can't help but think, "This was the problem with the Bene Gesserit plan all along: someone has got to get close enough to a scion of House Harkonnen to actually produce an heir while still keeping their lunch down."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:23 PM on October 16, 2017 [29 favorites]

.@realDonaldTrump When my brother was killed, Pres Bush listened while I screamed at him & then held me as I sobbed, you fat fucking liar.

Imagine where we would be right now if the GOP actually respected servicepeople, veterans, and their families even half as much as they claim to. Like it's too much to wrap the mind around the concept of the GOP actually caring about people of color or women or queer folks because they hardly even pretend otherwise. But they pretend real hard to care about the military.

Just imagine if they could actually own up to that in the face of this president. Because that one wedge alone should be enough to sink this entire administration. Just imagine it.

And when you're done, we return to the hellish reality of 2017 where the GOP plainly doesn't care.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:24 PM on October 16, 2017 [45 favorites]

Content warning

Two sources said that when the conversation turned to gay rights, Mr Trump motioned toward Mr Pence and joked: “Don’t ask that guy - he wants to hang them all!”

Stop stop stop.
posted by hapaxes.legomenon at 5:28 PM on October 16, 2017 [23 favorites]

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse raised a more specific concern

There's a Senator Whitehouse?? That guy has to run for president! He'd romp it in on name recognition alone!
posted by Coventry at 5:30 PM on October 16, 2017 [14 favorites]

Two sources said that when the conversation turned to gay rights, Mr Trump motioned toward Mr Pence and joked: “Don’t ask that guy - he wants to hang them all!”

Stop stop stop.

Every day there's a new thing that should stop this entire shitshow. Every day. Sometimes more than once a day. Half the things that should stop everything don't even go this far. Fucking horrifying.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:35 PM on October 16, 2017 [85 favorites]

Some of the replies demonstrate that there are those who have even less humanity than Trump.

It's almost as though a lot of his supporters are... what's the word I'm looking for... oh yeah deplorable.
posted by Justinian at 5:39 PM on October 16, 2017 [86 favorites]

There can be no sigh of relief when/if Trump is voted out in three years. Cruz is playing the long game, and he's both smarter and more disciplined. Then there's Paul Ryan. Don't forget Rubio. He's slick enough and charming enough to play the woulda/coulda/shoulda game with voters.
posted by Beholder at 5:44 PM on October 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Yeah, Trump is just the symptom of a far greater threat to us all: sadboner, willfully-ignorant white nationalism in league with embarrassingly wealthy jerks.

But in the meantime it would be nice to get his ass out of there.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:49 PM on October 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

Cruz was Mercer's first choice.
posted by Coventry at 5:50 PM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Maybe there's a German word for that feeling, when you are toe-to-toe with your adversary and sorely pressed but thinking if you can just hold out long enough, you might make it through, and then you look up and see that behind your adversary is another one, and another, and another. (I mean, I can think of a word in English but I'm trying to avoid using it because it can be seen as performative.)
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 6:02 PM on October 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

German word, "Lederhosenscheissung."
posted by Oyéah at 6:04 PM on October 16, 2017 [14 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments deleted. There's a thread about the sonic attacks on US diplomats in Cuba; go on over there if you want to noodle about that.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:06 PM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

I actually had a modicum of respect for Fox News' John Roberts as a bit of a straight shooter until this:

@johnrobertsFox: We'll have to agree to disagree. As long as HRC operates as a "shadow President", what she says carries relevance and weight.

Fox News was also whipping up a storm today over "New fears for
Hillary Clinton’s health" after she tripped in heels on the stairs. These people will simply never stop.
posted by zachlipton at 6:10 PM on October 16, 2017 [23 favorites]

But in the meantime it would be nice to get his ass out of there.

Yes, it would, whether that is by impeachment or 25th amendment or spontaneously combusting into a pile of smoldering orange goo. In the meantime, I've contented myself with renaming my Neko Atsume cat "Peaches" to "ImPeaches."
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:14 PM on October 16, 2017 [16 favorites]

I must be some kind of masochist because of late I've caught myself thinking COME ON 2018 MIDTERMS!
posted by vrakatar at 6:16 PM on October 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

As long as HRC operates as a "shadow President",

oh my god who do I have to pay for this to be true who tell me and I will do it
posted by lydhre at 6:18 PM on October 16, 2017 [91 favorites]

Well, I knew he was outspoken, but this was the first public comment I'd seen on politics. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention.

6 times Gregg Popovich ripped 'embarrassing' Donald Trump's presidency (Includes the great video clip of Pop learning who won New Hampshire.)
posted by Room 641-A at 6:19 PM on October 16, 2017 [12 favorites]

I must be some kind of masochist because of late I've caught myself thinking COME ON 2018 MIDTERMS!

Nah, you're no masochist. Look at it positively: you're optimistic enough to imagine there'll be a November 2018.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:20 PM on October 16, 2017 [23 favorites]

Part of me wants to call my mother to find out if she has recanted any of her eternal 100% support of Trump yet.

I did this. Don't do this.

in my mom's final year of decline, every time i was at her place she'd have fox news blaring fantastical white supremacist conspiracy theories. if she'd still been alive in 2016 i'm pretty sure her worthless shitstain boyfriend would've threatened her into voting for trump, in which case i would now be in prison for his murder. so thanks, mom, for letting go in 2010, when humanity still had hopes and dreams. thanks for keeping me out of prison.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:23 PM on October 16, 2017 [80 favorites]

As long as HRC operates as a "shadow President"

Wait...that's what they're going with, now? That Hilary is somehow controlling the "deep state" against Trump?

motherFUCKERS!

*smashes lamp*


Just got a new shipment in last week!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:25 PM on October 16, 2017 [19 favorites]

With you, poffin boffin. My dad died in 2011, and if the past 12 months makes me happy for anything, it's the fact that I didn't have to deal with dad voting for Trump. Sadly, I'm pretty sure he voted for Obama in 2008.
posted by mollweide at 6:28 PM on October 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

6 times Gregg Popovich ripped 'embarrassing' Donald Trump's presidency (Includes the great video clip of Pop learning who won New Hampshire.)
posted by Room 641-A at 6:19 PM on October 16 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

Whoa! I clearly haven't been paying attention. Thanks for the schooling, Room.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:30 PM on October 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't know if I have enough in me to make it through three and a fourth more years of this

These days I've practically made that line from The Unnameable a personal mantra

" ... where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."

Part of me wants to call my mother to find out if she has recanted any of her eternal 100% support of Trump yet.

Once again, I'm so relieved that my family is solidly anti-Trump. My mother hates Trump; my brother hates Trump; his wife hates Trump; their children hate Trump. "I understand," Donnie would undoubtedly say, "we feel the same way about you."
posted by octobersurprise at 6:32 PM on October 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

...so thanks, mom, for letting go in 2010, when humanity still had hopes and dreams.

Mom is still alive, but Dad died in 2010. He always had Faux Nooz on the teevee (at very high volume due to his fervently denied deafness). Mom always stood by his political stances and I know he would have loved Donald Trump. Not back when he was a Bill Buckley conservative, but later after the Roger Ailes brainwashing had commenced. Without Dad's influence, Mom stated flatly that, although she couldn't vote for Hillary, she would not, could not vote for that man. I attribute this to my father's demise. Thanks, Dad, wherever you are.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:37 PM on October 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

John Kelly ordered ICE to portray immigrants as criminals to justify raids
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:40 PM on October 16, 2017 [32 favorites]

Wait...that's what they're going with, now? That Hilary is somehow controlling the "deep state" against Trump?

Hillary, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Ayers, George Soros and Colin Kaepernick each take four-hour shifts.
posted by delfin at 6:40 PM on October 16, 2017 [74 favorites]

I must be some kind of masochist because of late I've caught myself thinking COME ON 2018 MIDTERMS!

No need to wait till 2018. In most states, there will be an election in three weeks. If you're registered, do not forget to go out and vote in the local elections on Tuesday, November 7. Let's make a difference.
posted by Loudmax at 6:42 PM on October 16, 2017 [20 favorites]

The big one I'm watching is the VA governor's race.
posted by Justinian at 6:43 PM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

My mom died June 2, 2016. I am so fucking glad she is not witnessing this shit.

The Indy Star would not let any reference to voting against Trump go in her obit. I tried. They did allow asking for people to register to vote in the obit, though.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:45 PM on October 16, 2017 [28 favorites]

as low as it gets

Every day someone says that, and the next day proves them wrong. Which doesn't make the shit talk about Obama and dead military folk any less shocking and sickening.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:55 PM on October 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Part of me wants to call my mother to find out if she has recanted any of her eternal 100% support of Trump yet.

I did this. Don't do this.

Buddy of mine who is basically a trust fund baby--and very, very aware of his privilege--held a Halloween party this weekend. He shared with several of us the pre-election conversation he had with his grandmother, who passed away recently at the age of 100. She had said, "I don't want you to be upset with me, but I'm voting for Trump. I just wish we could go back to a time where everyone knew their place."

I have an uncle whom I haven't spoken with since before the election, and I don't know how I could without shouting in his face. And the thing is, I know it won't do any good. But he's not elderly or anything. I have no idea how anyone could handle a situation like my friend faced.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:57 PM on October 16, 2017 [11 favorites]

The big one I'm watching is the VA governor's race.

Yes, that's a high profile election. There are hundreds of other low-profile elections of the sort that are routinely won by Republicans because Democrats don't bother with the small potatoes of local politics. There are elections for sheriffs, mayors, state representatives, school boards, and all of them matter. The outcomes of these elections won't make national news, but they will affect the lives of millions of people. Especially the poor, minorities, pregnant teenagers, undocumented immigrants, and those at the receiving end of the bigotry and ignorance of right wing policies.

If you're unhappy with Trump and the Republicans, don't wait until the midterms. We need to lay the groundwork to restore decency and democracy. In some states, early registration is already open. Vote now.
posted by Loudmax at 7:03 PM on October 16, 2017 [55 favorites]

I thank my lucky stars that I am not aware of any family members that voted for Trump. I have a hard enough time with those that voted third party in California where it didn't matter. How I would react to discovering a Trump Voter is not something I can bear thinking about.
posted by Justinian at 7:03 PM on October 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

It's nice to see you all here again. I am going to get down on one knee in the hope that Mike Pence leaves.
posted by adept256 at 7:03 PM on October 16, 2017 [14 favorites]

I'm just now seeing the Rose Garden video. Someone had meatloaf for lunch.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:10 PM on October 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

I thank my lucky stars that I am not aware of any family members that voted for Trump.

Trump is a dishonest coward, but plenty of people who voted for him are decent human beings, living in a hermetically sealed news bubble. We need to win them over and that won't happen if we shun them like lepers.
posted by Loudmax at 7:12 PM on October 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

This conversation about beloved family members eaten by the Fox News nightmaresphere, who passed before having a chance to reveal whether they would've in fact gone for Trump or whether this would have snapped them out of it... this conversation hits really close to home for me and thank you guys for saying it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:15 PM on October 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

We need to win them over and that won't happen if we shun them like lepers.

Oh I only talk about them behind their backs. Shhh. Don't tell.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:18 PM on October 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Also we don't need to have the hundred millionth repetition of the "we should try harder to be nice to Trump supporters" fight - Loudmax, you may not realize it but this is extremely painfully well-covered territory here. We're not doing that again right now.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:22 PM on October 16, 2017 [74 favorites]

I had an uncle that I hadn't seen in years, who showed up at last year's Thanksgiving and proceeded to crow that he'd helped keep out crooked Hilary. He died last month, and while I felt bad for his daughter, I felt a certain satisfaction in looking at his coffin during the service and thinking "Well at least you can't vote for him again, you old fucker."

I'm not saying I admire this side of myself, you understand. But I'm not gonna beat myself up about it either.
posted by emjaybee at 7:25 PM on October 16, 2017 [67 favorites]

My mother is trying to figure out how to navigate friends and family who voted for Trump. She's just sick at heart about it, but she thinks, and rightfully so, that saying what she feels would leave her with few friends and non-existent family relationships. She doesn't feel like she can start anew with better people. Watching her coping with this on top of the more than a year of severe mental illness is heartbreaking. I am so glad she's a sweet, kind lady, but my GOD am I happy I took after my big-mouthed, suffer-no-fools father.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:25 PM on October 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell been straight up using the word 'lies'. He's been really consistent and emphatic about it.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:27 PM on October 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

I wish my mom were still around; she'd be out protesting Trump everyday. On the other hand, she did live to see Obama elected which made her so happy even if he wasn't Shirley Chisholm.
posted by octothorpe at 7:38 PM on October 16, 2017 [21 favorites]

There's normally not much reason to visit Belchertown, MA (although the Quabbin Reservoir visitor center is worth a detour on your way to Amherst or Northampton). But somebody who lives on the main road in the center of town (Rte. 202) has strung a large "IMPEACH" banner along the picket fence in front of their house.
posted by adamg at 7:41 PM on October 16, 2017 [14 favorites]

@johnrobertsFox: We'll have to agree to disagree. As long as HRC operates as a "shadow President", what she says carries relevance and weight.

They fear Hillary Clinton because she was one of the few people who called Trump out as the lying, incompetent, sociopathic slimeball that he is, to his face on national television.

None of them have had the balls to do that. Not Republicans in Congress. Not the @GOP. Not his cabinet nor his advisors. Not the speaker of the house. Not the media. Not Fox News' propaganda machine. They all took his shit and pretended the whiny, narcissistic emperor was sane.

Clinton's intelligence, wisdom, experience and relevance continues to haunt them. Good. She's a living, breathing stark contrast of what an adult looks like. And every day she says anything that sounds even slightly Presidential, that highlights the fact that the flag-bearing champion they've embraced is a self-centered moron.
posted by zarq at 7:51 PM on October 16, 2017 [144 favorites]

Between the horrifying 'joke' about hanging LGBTQ folks and the sadistic forced pregnancy of an underage undocumented girl - once again they are testing how far they can go by practicing on the most vulnerable of us.

This feels like another in a long line of watershed moments where Something Must Be Done and... I am so afraid nothing will happen.

FFS, hurry up Mueller.
posted by Space Kitty at 7:53 PM on October 16, 2017 [28 favorites]

John McCain today:

"To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history," McCain said, to applause.

posted by octothorpe at 7:54 PM on October 16, 2017 [89 favorites]

It's hard to tell if McCain is hinting at another run for the presidency, or if he knows he's dying, and is just going to spill all the tea.


I mean, yes- he hates Trump from another movie, but still...
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:02 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

I'm voting tea.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:06 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

Oh, speaking of western Mass., a guy who runs a chain of stores that sells pet supplies and soda has learned that the Pioneer Valley is not the sort of place where people appreciate you posing for executive-order signings with the current president, regardless of your motivation.

Asked if he is a Dave’s customer, Northampton resident Eric Olsson, out walking his 8-month-old puppy, Mochi, said simply, “I was.”

posted by adamg at 8:06 PM on October 16, 2017 [46 favorites]

My mother is trying to figure out how to navigate friends and family who voted for Trump.

Oh god, this. My grandmother who I love was furious when I fought against Trump at the convention and we just made up and she started talking to me about Trump again and I legit did not know what to do. She's an immigrant! Her whole family are immigrants!

But she also buys those magazine subscriptions that come in the mail that tell you you have won something, and has started writing her address wrong. And sometimes she talks about how hard it is to get old and feel your body breaking down. And I wonder. But it's still fucking hard.
posted by corb at 8:17 PM on October 16, 2017 [23 favorites]

I caught up this weekend with the podcast What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law, which finally posted its Impeachment episode, and I'm...more resigned now that ever going that route will be longest of unlikely long shots.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:19 PM on October 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Tea. Every last drop.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:28 PM on October 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

First off, yes - almost everywhere has some kind of election in a few weeks. Make sure you educate yourself and vote!

Also, Cook Political on why the VA House of Delegates races may be more indicative for the 2018 House results than the VA governor race.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:33 PM on October 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

Hillary, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Ayers, George Soros and Colin Kaepernick each take four-hour shifts.

Except during the dog watches, when they're cur-tailed. #AubreyMaturinFanJoke
posted by Orlop at 8:36 PM on October 16, 2017 [22 favorites]

NYT: State election officials, worried about the integrity of their voting systems, are pressing to make them more secure ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:41 PM on October 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

Any of y'all MeFi old timers remember when the political posts would stop after the election?

You 6 digit user ID young folks here, you may not know it, but it's true, we used to go years at a stretch without megathread FPPs on US politics.

This asshole ruins everything, doesn't he?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:24 PM on October 16, 2017 [93 favorites]

Let me say something about McCain.

Several years ago my partner found that her skin cancer had metastasized. This was a week after we got together. We had an incredible loving and caring relationship for 5 months before she left her body. In the last month we discovered that she had brain tumors that were overlooked. She had seizures beginning the week before. And she went fast

When I tell people this story, the first thing that usually comes out of my mouth was that "because we intuitively knew that our time together was going to be short there was no margin for bullshit"

No one is going through the experience that McCain is going through. I am sure his walking is tenuous. That dizzy spells are common along with a host of other issues. And, against the desires of a man who questioned his service, he stood up to cast votes that, like him or not, we can all be grateful for. I think he knows that at this time in his life there is no margin for bullshit. He's got nothing to lose.

My father could be an enraged, hateful man. As he sunk deeper and deeper into Parkinson's Disease I saw my family treating him like a child (i.e.propping him up for photographs etc.) It made me angry as, for all his faults, I wanted him to be treated with dignity.

Soon before he died he came to me vividly in a dream and said, "Thank you for treating me like a king"

I am not intending for this to be a sermon. I just wish that everyone here would treat McCain with a little more dignity.
posted by goalyeehah at 9:29 PM on October 16, 2017 [75 favorites]

My dad almost died of throat cancer this year. By some miracle, the seven weeks of chemo-radiation resulted in full remission. But for more than half a year, we both thought he was going to die soon. He lives in the fox bubble. We used to argue about politics. While he was sick, I would make the 300 mile drive to the deep South where he lives about twice a month to see him. We talked about where he wants his ashes buried, We talked about his opiate addiction that had caused us to be estranged for the last few years. We talked about the past, the future, people, good times, joys, and regrets. We never mentioned Donald Trump. I hope we never do.
posted by double block and bleed at 9:37 PM on October 16, 2017 [19 favorites]

I just wish that everyone here would treat McCain with a little more dignity.

I treat him with every bit of dignity that he treated me and mine when he was still of sound mind and body.
posted by Candleman at 9:44 PM on October 16, 2017 [67 favorites]

Hey, Virginia. Popping my head back up to drop this link:

https://secure.ralphnortham.com/page/s/volunteer-today

Three weeks left. It's time for all hands on deck. Let's go, and all y'all pick up when I call you.
posted by dogheart at 9:51 PM on October 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm just so confused. We're a year in and I still don't know an actual human being who claims to be a Trump supporter. I live in the Midwest and I'm not a shut-in, I hang out with people from many different social classes and backgrounds and I'm very active on social media. My rich friends hate Trump, my poor friends hate Trump, my Christian friends hate Trump (although they seem a little more defensive), even people who have said very conservative things in the past hate Trump. I take long walks for miles around my neighborhood, and I've seen a total of one Trump yard sign. Even during the Bush years I had friends from military backgrounds and such who were openly Republican. This time around it's like Trump supporters are just a completely different planet with no communication with my world.
posted by miyabo at 9:53 PM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

We're a year in and I still don't know an actual human being who claims to be a Trump supporter.

A lot of them are lying to you.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:05 PM on October 16, 2017 [121 favorites]

Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former senior aide to Mr. Obama, used even stronger language on Twitter, calling Mr. Trump’s statement a lie — along with an expletive — and describing him as a “deranged animal.”

So that other people don't need to search for it:

Alyssa Mastromonaco‏ @AlyssaMastro44

that's a fucking lie. to say president obama (or past presidents) didn't call the family members of soldiers KIA - he's a deranged animal.
11:08 AM - 16 Oct 2017 from Manhattan, NY

posted by sebastienbailard at 10:16 PM on October 16, 2017 [33 favorites]

As the parent of a sweet, empathetic, only occasionally willful toddler -- I'm so happy we've moved past the "toddler" comparison stage.
posted by chortly at 10:21 PM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]

This time around it's like Trump supporters are just a completely different planet with no communication with my world.

Part of that is that they really do live on an island to themselves which functions as an echo chamber.

Look at the isolated tumor that are Trump twitter supporters.
posted by Justinian at 11:08 PM on October 16, 2017 [30 favorites]

It's literally a red-hot ball of rage.
posted by mochapickle at 11:14 PM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

You know, this division and isolation is a problem - it's like, you have a sibling who is drinking too much and if you talk to them when their drinking they tell you to go fuck yourself so you have to get them when they're sober but you don't know when that is anymore, and then there's their 'friend' Joey who keeps buying them drinks, and you wanna keep positive but last night your sibling stole your car and crashed it into a preschool and when the police arrived gave them your name, which the press ran with and... just...
but divided we fall. Who's behind that? The Mercers? Koch? Addelstein? That's the disease, the rest is symptom.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:25 PM on October 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

There was a time when i chided friends and colleagues who made 1930s Germany analogies, now I'm studying a foreign language so that i can be a refugee from either a civil war or a dictatorship come Nov 2018.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 11:38 PM on October 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

It's literally a red-hot ball of rage.

I figured that Onion story was a joke, but... no, that's clearly a red hot ball of rage, right there on Twitter.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 11:39 PM on October 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

(Anyone interested in more stuff like the "isolated tumor" should check out truthy.indiana.edu, AKA the Obervatory on Social Media.)
posted by xyzzy at 12:16 AM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm so happy we've moved past the "toddler" comparison stage.

I've been going with "drunk baby".
posted by Paul Slade at 12:19 AM on October 17, 2017

I’ve been going with “mean old bastard”
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:41 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

RBC in Russia has an amazing investigative piece on Russia's internet operations, one of the most detailed such stories I've seen: Investigation of RBC: how the "troll factory" worked in the US elections (via Google Translate, which is pretty readable; if you happen to speak Russian: the original. I expect various Moscow bureaus will write about this in English tomorrow). It goes into detail on key leaders of the effort, the number of personnel, the costs of the operation, and their focus on creating division over social issues or even just defending Kellyanne Conway for how she sat on the couch. They analyzed 120 accounts that were blocked after social networking sites cracked down on suspected Russian operations, concluding that they had more than 6 million subscribers, with Facebook posts at their maximum viewership receiving over 70 million views/week.

The hook is compelling: a 2015 operation where they lured people to Times Square with the false promise of a free hot dog, watching via webcams to test how feasible it was to remotely organize events in the US.

Most interesting is the bit toward the end about Russian efforts to involve US activists. Micah White of Occupy Wall Street fame did a suspicious interview for the BlackMattersUS site, as did several other prominent activists. They then worked to involve the activists in local protests and events.

They also sponsored free self-defense classes in Lansing, LA, Tampa, and New York through the social media page "BlackFist." I don't know what the hell to make of that. In total, they spent around $3500 for flights and expenses for local organizers.

The article says they still have about 55 people in the "American Department" with a "total audience of 1-1.5 million." The kicker is a touch mangled in translation, but no less haunting:

Source close to the leadership of "factory", insisting: "Could we influence the outcome of elections .. No, of course?. Could inclined to doubt the states on the side of Trump? .. Maybe, but we are stunned by the results. Why do we need all this? .. Pure fan

posted by zachlipton at 12:44 AM on October 17, 2017 [34 favorites]

I’ve been going with “mean old bastard”

"Racist, Senile Old Man."
posted by mikelieman at 1:09 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

RBC's new owner is seen as being a Putin pal, so that report could just be Putin bragging via the media about how weak the US electoral system is to outside influence.
posted by PenDevil at 1:14 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I still maintain Fox News works like a human botnet. How to dismantle a botnet (tldr; infiltrate the administration and gain control of the c&c structure)
posted by benzenedream at 1:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

It has been well noted that Donald Trump has been a minor-character/subject/punchline of Doonesbury since the 1980s, and it's scary how prescient some of Trudeau's storylines have been. For example, the Doonesbury Reruns on gocomics.com are currently replaying a story arc from 1989 about "Trump, the Game Show", complete with his signature objectification of women. As I've said before, how could we NOT have seen him coming???
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:26 AM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

As I've said before, how could we NOT have seen him coming???

Most did, but as has been noted the Conservative Christian GOP base would vote for an ill tempered goose that has an"I will ban abortion!" cardboard sign hanging around it's neck than an actual human more interested in not starting nuclear wars.
posted by PenDevil at 1:37 AM on October 17, 2017 [53 favorites]

I don't know if I have enough in me to make it through three and a fourth more years of this.

I've been catching up on old comic books.

...for some reason it helps. I dunno.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:05 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Because they can't afford $5: Propaganda ‘balloon-bombs’ have burst over Seoul, distributing leaflets lambasting President Trump
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:05 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

I've been catching up on old comic books.

...for some reason it helps. I dunno.

As I so very nearly noted to a friend of a friend on Facebook, who tried to defend Donald Trump as "not a cartoon villain," one major difference is that villains in fiction always have at least one moment that humanizes them to the audience, while Donald Trump has never done so to my knowledge.
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:18 AM on October 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

Related to Korea's 'balloon-bombs', here's an interactive piece on "Where can North Korea’s missiles reach?"
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:42 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Propaganda ‘balloon-bombs’ have burst over Seoul, distributing leaflets lambasting President Trump

Hm. Where could one obtain such delightful ephemera? Asking for a friend.

For real, though, the one with all the bombs pointed at the Capitol building and the tattered American flag is like a visual representation of how I feel. I think the only reason I'm not panicking is because I grew up in the cortisol bath of the Cold War.
posted by xyzzy at 3:27 AM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

"We are the people that got him elected. And we are tired of being lied to."

Were they fucking unconscious when they were getting him elected? Did they really not know that he lies about everything, to everyone, all the time>
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:31 AM on October 17, 2017 [30 favorites]

This time around it's like Trump supporters are just a completely different planet with no communication with my world.

Can I move to your world? It sounds nice.
posted by octothorpe at 3:38 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Were they fucking unconscious when they were getting him elected? Did they really not know that he lies about everything, to everyone, all the time

An anti-Trump evangelical Christian just wrote a book about that. I haven't read it yet, but he was recently on an atheist podcast (!) to talk about it.
posted by Rykey at 4:01 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And unusual for them to involve themselves with anything political.

@Martin_Dempsey
POTUS 43 & 44 and first ladies cared deeply, worked tirelessly for the serving, the fallen, and their families. Not politics. Sacred Trust.

---

And former Republican congressman David Jolly (FL) said last night on Lawrence O'Donnell that the Republic might be "better off" if "Democrats take the House in 2018" because the GOP isn't checking Trump.

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 4:04 AM on October 17, 2017 [33 favorites]

There was a time when i chided friends and colleagues who made 1930s Germany analogies

I was terrified watching the republican convention last year. Hairs on the back of my neck standing up, cold adrenaline sweats terrified.

People who don't study history are doomed to repeat it while the people who did study it are gobbling handfuls of Ativan on the sidelines screaming WE TOLD YOU SO.

Also for anyone who says they don't know anyone who supports Trump, at least some of those people are lying because their social circles don't let them be open with their bigotry. Trump is a symptom, not the disease.
posted by winna at 4:49 AM on October 17, 2017 [82 favorites]

the goddamned Trump supporter across the street has, like he does with his crew cut and his closely shorn lawn, been busily been tending to election stuff. Nothing exciting, just city council members, school whatever, ballot measure x y and z.

His lawn is festooned with neatly placed signs. Nobody else's house is, around here.

I both hate him and point at his house like SEE SEE SEE those fucking bastards vote. I'd have to say he's one of the most engaged people in the community. And, he's evil.

And I'm like, 'I gotta do that' but although I will vote, there are things in my life like going to a day of meetings today after having a night with a migraine that was the projectile vomiting/wish I was dead stage and I have no time or energy to figure out I could get a dozen obscure signs about a dozen obscure issues.

I wonder how that Nazi across the street gets his energy. I drink a lot of espresso, but that's just to get through the fucking absolutely essential parts of the day.
posted by angrycat at 4:51 AM on October 17, 2017 [25 favorites]

He gets his energy because he enjoys it. Reasonable people would rather not march. Reasonable people would rather stay home or go for a walk or hang out with a friend than be politically active, because politics and activism are work, often a grind. Assholes seem indefatigable because they get off on this. They get off on hurting people. This is what they do instead of reading a nice book.
posted by middleclasstool at 4:59 AM on October 17, 2017 [72 favorites]

As I've said before, how could we NOT have seen him coming???

There are parts of the country where people act reflexively to "piss off liberals." We say pollution is bad, they "roll coal." We say Trump is a fraud, they rally behind him. It's frightening how quickly they'll cut off their own noses to spite us.
posted by explosion at 5:00 AM on October 17, 2017 [55 favorites]

Oh my god, yes. My friend likes to point out that Trump was elected by people who’d let him shit in their mouth if a liberal had to smell it
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:02 AM on October 17, 2017 [114 favorites]

There are parts of the country where people act reflexively to "piss off liberals."

There's a strong streak of anti elitism in general, but the expression of such varies widely.
posted by ZeusHumms at 5:05 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Moscow correspondent for The Guardian, Shaun Walker, highlights this RBC article on Twitter today:

@shaunwalker7: A big @ru_rbc investigation here on Russian troll operations with loads of new details on electoral campaign (RUS). Among the claims here is that Russians posing as Americans helped fund US activists' travel around the country during electoral campaign (!)

I don't think there is an english version, but chrome can translate.
posted by pjenks at 5:06 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Jared Kushner’s Family Is Screwed, and It’s All Boy Wonder’s Fault
Given his track record, however, it’s unclear whether Kushner is even qualified to work as a White House intern—his only two professional achievements of note have been buying and running a newspaper into the ground and running his family’s real-estate business while his father was in prison, striking a deal that a decade later is still haunting his family.
posted by PenDevil at 5:07 AM on October 17, 2017 [43 favorites]

"To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history," McCain said, to applause said John McCain, the man who gave Sarah Palin a national platform and elevated her particular brand of hateful, proudly ignorant racist nationalism.

FTFY, ABCnews.
posted by duffell at 5:12 AM on October 17, 2017 [44 favorites]

To be fair, Kushner is also working to “solve the opioid crisis, overhaul the government’s I.T. infrastructure, and “reinvent the entire government.” Anyone would be hard-pressed to concentrate on business with that much on their plate.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:15 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Jared Kushner’s Family Is Screwed, and It’s All Boy Wonder’s Fault

I remember seeing ads for a short-lived TV show called "666 Park Ave" a few years ago and thinking that the title was way too over-the-top. Once again reality has worse writers than TV.
posted by octothorpe at 5:16 AM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

Could you imagine the if someone high up in a democratic administration owned a property with that address?
posted by drezdn at 5:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

Oh, and bringing peace to the Middle East! Although that’s probably just sort of a hobby he dabbles away at when he’s got a spare evening.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

And former Republican congressman David Jolly (FL) said last night on Lawrence O'Donnell that the Republic might be "better off" if "Democrats take the House in 2018" because the GOP isn't checking Trump.

Is he friends with Robert Reich?
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:23 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

oh god DAMN IT DAVE
I've relied on his canned wet food for years; it's good-quality and affordable stuff. I was prepared to grumble like hell and see if I could afford switching to Weruva, but having read the linked article, he does kind of sound like a hapless actor in this situation. But god damn it, Dave.
posted by halation at 5:32 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

I am terrified that the United States is letting Iran make much more substantial moves in Iraq and allowing the reaming of the Kurds so that they can use it as an additional pretext to attack Iran.
posted by srboisvert at 5:50 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

oh god DAMN IT DAVE

My dog has been eating his kibble since we adopted her. We live in RI, but adopted her from a shelter in Springfield who partners with Dave. I don't know about the hapless actor thing. He was deleting all the negative FB comments, it took at least three versions of his explanation post before he got around to saying that he disagreed with most of the bill and was duped, and his story kept changing the more people complained. It was... not good.
posted by Ruki at 5:51 AM on October 17, 2017 [19 favorites]

Also,

If you're unhappy with Trump and the Republicans, don't wait until the midterms. We need to lay the groundwork to restore decency and democracy. In some states, early registration is already open. Vote now.

So much this. So, so much this. I'm super hesitant to go all "eggs-in-one-basket" due to my already fragile mental and emotional state, but the upcoming NOVEMBER 7, 2017 ELECTIONS are extremely fucking important.

If Republicans around the country--and especially in Virginia--are shellacked in next month's state and local elections, it may very well trigger another round of resignations / "I'm not running again" announcements from prominent Republicans in Congress. If the Republicans do surprisingly well, they will double down on their worst instincts. If the status quo holds, I expect nothing much will change and we'll be in the same grim situation we are now.

Vote, tell your friends and neighbors to vote, make some calls, write some postcards, give some money, whatever you've got to do. November 7 matters.
posted by duffell at 5:53 AM on October 17, 2017 [46 favorites]

So Trump’s former WH Communications Director thinks this is worth questioning.

@ScaramucciPost:
How many Jews were killed in the Holocaust?
- Less than 1 million
- Between 1-2 million
- Between 2-3 million
- More than 5 million
posted by chris24 at 5:58 AM on October 17, 2017 [19 favorites]

To paraphrase Sarah Silverman, I hope the answer isn't "More than 5 million." Because THAT would be unforgivable.
posted by Rykey at 6:06 AM on October 17, 2017 [24 favorites]

McConnell and Trump are like a very, very deranged version of the Tortoise and the Hare.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:09 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

The ScaramucciPost was removed and replaced with:

The intent of the poll was to highlight ignorance of the basic facts of the Holocaust. I take full responsibility for it.

and

This poll was put up by @lancelaifer without consulting @Scaramucci who is traveling in London.
The poll has been taken down.

posted by mmascolino at 6:09 AM on October 17, 2017

Wow, and right after posting this poll, they retweeted the ADL commenting on the pulling of a Anne Frank Halloween costume and asking for thoughts on it. A new land speed record from zero to Nazi.

@ADL_National:
Hard to see how this offensive idea made it this far, but thankfully this costume has been removed from the market: Company says sorry over ‘Anne Frank costume’ for Halloween

@ScaramucciPost: retweeted ADL
Thoughts? #SPthoughts
posted by chris24 at 6:10 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

oh god DAMN IT DAVE

This is all I want from my local Internet: A local-business Trump supporter yes/no flag. Like grabyourwallet.org but specific to MyTown, USA. Is the owner of the {insert franchise here} in MyTown a Trumpet? If so - we're done there.
posted by petebest at 6:13 AM on October 17, 2017 [25 favorites]

The intent of the poll was to highlight ignorance of the basic facts of the Holocaust. I take full responsibility for it.

and

This poll was put up by @lancelaifer without consulting @Scaramucci who is traveling in London.
The poll has been taken down.

A more perfect demonstration of the Republican concept of "full responsibility," I have never seen.
posted by duffell at 6:14 AM on October 17, 2017 [28 favorites]

CNN: Marino out at DEA.
posted by jackbishop at 6:21 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

@ScaramucciPost: retweeted ADL
Thoughts? #SPthoughts

i think you're an asshole. any more questions?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:21 AM on October 17, 2017 [29 favorites]

NPR News: Tom Marino, Trump's Pick As Drug Czar, Withdraws After Damaging Opioid Report

Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., has withdrawn his name from consideration as America's drug czar, President Trump said Tuesday. Marino is stepping back days after reports that a bill he sponsored hindered the Drug Enforcement Administration in its fight against the U.S. opioid crisis.

A joint report by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes found that Marino's bill "helped pump more painkillers into parts of the country that were already in the middle of the opioid crisis," as NPR's Kelly McEvers said earlier this week. The bill was opposed by the DEA and embraced by companies in the drug industry.

posted by mmascolino at 6:22 AM on October 17, 2017 [20 favorites]

goalyeehah On the one hand I can sort of see where you're coming from. On the other, no.

McCain has not yet earned dignity or respect. He has not even apologized for his prior evils, much less outlined a clear path towards redemption for himself.

It is unfortunate that any person is suffering terminal illness, but simply because an awful person is suffering doesn't mean we should forgive their entire past history of awfulness. Darth Vader wasn't redeemed by his single act of saving Luke's life. John McCain was not redeemed by his single vote to save the ACA.

I'm going to quote, of all bizarre things, the webcomic Order of the Stick:

Redemption requires more than simply the execution of your duty, even if you follow that duty to the end.

True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for the actions that caused the Twelve Gods to turn away from you.

That you even acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong.

McCain has done none of those things, he has not earned redemption, and he has not earned forgiveness or respect. He sold his dignity for scraps, I can't give that back to him.

I'm not sure he's got enough time left to earn redemption even if he started genuinely working to atone for his sins, and he has not.

Redemption is not for everyone. We'd like it to be, we'd like to imagine that the most evil among us can seek some sort of deathbed conversion and redemption like we see in so many movies, but that's not the way it works in real life. A person cannot serve evil their entire life and at the end say "sorry" and simply have their record wiped clean.

So far John McCain hasn't even found the moral courage to apologize for his past evils, and he has not truly denounced the effort to kill the ACA.

I'm glad he voted no, don't get me wrong. But now he has one good vote against thousands, tens of thousands, of bad votes, that's not enough.
posted by sotonohito at 6:23 AM on October 17, 2017 [35 favorites]

The great people of Nambia (aka the USA) are pushing their leaders into a massive limbo contest. How low can you go?!?!
posted by blue_beetle at 6:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

And that is exactly what the GOP has been running on for decades. "Well, you see, actually the government can't do anything right / fix this / take care of that, so that is why we have to take it away from Washington and give it to the states / oligarchs." has been the standard stump speech since Reagan. Never mind the annoying facts that it is usually the GOP that have fucked up what ever the government was doing.

This is my regular reminder that P.J. O'Rourke wrote that Republicans are the party that says that government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it back in 1991.

During the election, O'Rourke declared that he couldn't vote for Trump and was voting for Clinton, so good on him for that.
posted by Gelatin at 6:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [31 favorites]

We're a year in and I still don't know an actual human being who claims to be a Trump supporter. I live in the Midwest and I'm not a shut-in

I live in Cincinnati, OH. My family is from the midwest and south. I have PLENTY of family who not only voted for Trump but who are still vocally supporting him. My dad, for one. My uncles (who were both died-in-the-wool Democrats until Obama was elected...hello, never before seen racism), several of my cousins, my aunts, too.

My rich friends hate Trump,

My brother-in-law is rich. He voted for Trump. We had a large disagreement over it because, I guess, I dared to post anti-Trump stuff on Facebook? Anyway, my sister and I were *just* beginning to have a real relationship and now I don't feel like I can visit her because he'll be there and I just can't even.

my poor friends hate Trump,

My poorest relatives are the ones who are really vocally FOR Trump. They only watch Fox News, they're all racist (sadly, it's true), and they LOVE him.

my Christian friends hate Trump (although they seem a little more defensive),

My middle brother is a born-again Evangelist. He preaches every Sunday in a non-traditional church in the suburbs of Chicago. He loves Jesus. But he also hates abortion. He is a one issue voter and no matter how many times I try to make him see that conservatives don't stand for anything Jesus taught, he votes conservative because abortion is the only thing that matters to him.

I take long walks for miles around my neighborhood, and I've seen a total of one Trump yard sign.

I don't have to go far from my house this very day to find a HUGE Tump sign on someone's fence. I see Trump bumper stickers every single day on my way to and from work and when I run errands on the weekend. The neighbors catty-corner from us had a sign during the 2012 election that read "A Village In Kenya Is Missing Its Idiot" and the elderly couple who live there always seemed so nice and kind and lovely; they had a Trump sign this time around, surprise surprise.

This time around it's like Trump supporters are just a completely different planet with no communication with my world.

I would like to live in your world for a little while because I love my family and it is SO HARD to reconcile the fact that I am of them and they are of me with the fact that some of them supported and still support Trump. My entire sense of family has been upended and it hurts so damned much and I'm so confused and I hate it.
posted by cooker girl at 6:29 AM on October 17, 2017 [79 favorites]

An anti-Trump evangelical Christian just wrote a book about that. I haven't read it yet, but he was recently on an atheist podcast (!) to talk about it.

If there is a transcript I could read instead of listening to the podcast, I'd love to.

And on the "don't know anyone who supported Trump" train - I believe that some of my relatives did, although a couple may have held their noses to do so. And here in New York City, and also in upstate New York, I frequently see Trump bumper stickers, promotional signs, and such.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:34 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Krugman lists the lies about the GOP tax plan.

Oh, man. Living in blood-red Indiana, and having an anomalous Democratic senator (Donnely), I've been seeing a lot of the advertising the right is pushing out about "not letting your senator stand in the way of a fair, simple tax plan." The ad up-front lies about how the Republican tax plan cuts-out the wealthy, the well-connected, and the politicians. It's insane.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:41 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, this isn’t an apology. And why wasn’t it offensive to you?

@ScaramucciPost:
This is @lancelaifer and I apologize if anyone was offended by the Holocaust poll.
posted by chris24 at 6:41 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Another day, another catalog of how Rex Tillerson has destroyed the State Department and all of American foreign policy in 9 months: Rex Tillerson and the Unraveling of the State Department
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:42 AM on October 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

I feel like the McCain thing may be pretty well-trodden territory at this point?

Redemption is a frustrating idea. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, and forgiveness is a pretty healthy move. But one of the less palatable Christian fundamentals for me is that you can be a horrible shit your whole life, accept the lord on your deathbed, and all is forgiven. Fuck that. Try to be a better person every day.

I still think everyone seeking public office should have to take the Hippocratic Oath.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:42 AM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

My neighbor (in Jersey City) has a huge MAGA banner... but it's in his garage, which is kept closed most of the time. Your own metaphor may vary.
posted by armacy at 6:44 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm in Cincinnati too (hi cooker girl) and I don't regularly run into Trump but I know of them. I did have a very contentious business dinner last winter that not only featured an unapologetic Trump supporter but also a proud Englishman who voted for Brexit.

As for outward support, my house is about a half mile off of one the main north/south roads in the city/county (Montgomery Road) and prior to 2016 in election years the mixture of Republican to Democrat signs in people's yards were roughly 50-50. For the 2016, there was zero Republican signs of any sort save for one for Senator Portman. Today in the neighborhood the only signs that make an impression are the ones for welcoming refugees and a few hand scrawled "RESIST" signs.

I certainly know where I could go to see Trump signs...hell, a few miles north of me I found a guy last December that still had a "Dr Ben Carson for President" sign in his yard.
posted by mmascolino at 6:46 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I live in a liberal social bubble in San Antonio, one of the bluer parts of Texas, and I know several ardent Trump supporters.

Most are middle class, a rather horrifying number are Latinx or Hispanic. Many are self identified Evangelical Christians.

I'd say "even after" all the latest Trump BS they're supporters, but for a lot of them it's "especially after". Many of the white Trumpites have told me that Puerto Rico was being lazy and needed tough love instead of handouts.

So yes, they're out there even today.
posted by sotonohito at 6:47 AM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

"Dr Ben Carson for President"

That would be so much better than this.
posted by thelonius at 6:47 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

"Dr Ben Carson for President"

That would be so much better than this.

Señor Cardgage from Homestar Runner would be better than this.

*suddenly realizes Ben Carson is a real-life Señor Cardgage*
posted by duffell at 6:50 AM on October 17, 2017 [26 favorites]

I just wish that everyone here would treat McCain with a little more dignity.

I have profound empathy for what he's dealing with. A few years ago, a friend died a very slow and terrible death from brain cancer. Multiple surgeries to remove those tumors as well as chemotherapy took her from us bit by bit. She was in her 30's and 40's. He's much older, and I assume his battle will be more difficult.

McCain's political career is filled with contradictions. Throughout his time in office, he's been conservative on some issues. Moderate on others. An aggressive war hawk. But he's also changed positions on various issues over time (most notably tax cuts) and his rhetoric hasn't always matched his voting record. He has said he's against discrimination and for equal pay, but has voted the opposite way on both issues on more than one occasion. He fought against torture of prisoners and then for it. He ran in 2008 on a relatively moderate platform and gave speeches and town halls as if he were a moderate, reasonable Republican. But when it came time to choose advisors and a running mate, he picked far right extremists.

In his case, actions really have spoken louder than words. In my not-so-humble opinion, it's more respectful to look at the whole person, and not just their disease.

I do hope he gets through this and that his family doesn't have to watch him decline slowly, which is in and of itself an awful thing. But the odds aren't good. Survival rate for brain cancer is lower than 30% for men.
posted by zarq at 6:57 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

T.D. Strange I can't help but suspect that the destruction of the State Department, in addition to simply helping the Trump criminal empire, is part of the general hatred of competent government by Republicans.

Until Trump came into power the State Department was one of those examples of the US government being very good indeed. Not that other departments didn't do well, but State always had a reputation for quality, efficiency, and competency that (to my outsider eyes anyway) seemed well deserved.

Tillerson seems to be taking the O'Rourke line as a prescription, not an indictment. From the very first he has always found time to dismantle the machinery of the State Department, despite being "too tired" to actually do his theoretical job as Secretary of State.

Assuming we get a Democrat in office by 2020 the damage will doubtless take several presidential administrations to rebuild.

And the damage to America's reputation is irreparable. Already the world knows that America's word is simply no good. We now have the same reputation that Trump personally has, a reputation as a dishonest, dishonorable, polity that will abandon any treaty, any agreement, any deal not just if it seems even mildly inconvenient, but also just seemingly at random.

Junior did a pretty good job of that when he broke faith on the deal Clinton brokered with the DPRK. That deal wasn't exactly great, but it was working. The world was, foolishly, willing to see that as an aberration. Now, with Trump, there's no denying it: America's word is no good.

And even more than demoting, firing, and driving out, the skilled, motivated, and qualified, people over at State, that's going to give a hypothetically repaired future State Department an impossible task. How can you do diplomacy if nothing you say is taken seriously and all promises you make are known to be lies?
posted by sotonohito at 7:00 AM on October 17, 2017 [29 favorites]

How can you do diplomacy if nothing you say is taken seriously and all promises you make are known to be lies?

Obviously, you sit back and let Russia take the world's reigns. I mean, that's the actual plan behind burning down the State Dept., isn't it?
posted by Thorzdad at 7:04 AM on October 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

Donny gets caught lying, Donny is gonna double down:

Kaitlin Collins(CNN): Trump on his claim other presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers: "You could ask General Kelly if he got a call from Obama."
posted by PenDevil at 7:18 AM on October 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

Junior did a pretty good job of that when he broke faith on the deal Clinton brokered with the DPRK. That deal wasn't exactly great, but it was working. The world was, foolishly, willing to see that as an aberration. Now, with Trump, there's no denying it: America's word is no good.

The good news (if we can call it that) is that Trump's rise to power has been mirrored by a rise in similar anti-immigrant, racist, anti-intellectual, self-destructive and isolationist movements in other countries. Most notably the UK, but also in France and several other countries, including Brazil and South Africa. While Marcon decisively defeated Le Pen, Trump actually lost the popular vote to a sane and steady candidate and was only elected because of an outdated electoral system. Brexit passed by only 4%, and there was an outpouring of "OH SHIT" that followed from UK voters. Le Pen's party, the National Front, did very well in prior elections -- and repeated surveys of French citizens showed that they favored the party's goals, even if they weren't enamored by its leaders. In Germany, their right-wing nationalist party, "Alternative for Germany" has been steadily gaining power as well. They're anti-Merkel, anti-Muslim, anti-EU, anti-refugee and anti-immigrant and won 12.6% of the vote last month.

So, Trump is part of a larger movement. As with George W. Bush, his extreme lack of popularity will be noted by the rest of the world as will protests by American citizens against his policies and incompetence. And perhaps that our election result was heavily influenced by Russian machinations.

When Obama was elected, the world celebrated the return of America as a sane, stable player on global stage. Hopefully that will happen again after Trump and his corrupt cronies have been shown the door.
posted by zarq at 7:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

Señor Cardgage from Homestar Runner would be better than this.

I'll take it. "Avoidin' unclear war with Chick Corea? No probalo!"
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:22 AM on October 17, 2017 [33 favorites]

Obviously, you sit back and let Russia take the world's reigns. I mean, that's the actual plan behind burning down the State Dept., isn't it?

Yes. It's not just standard issue 'Republicans hate government' put into practice, because Republicans don't hate the State Department traditionally. They may prefer to use the military more than Democrats and diminish State's influence relative to a Democratic administration, but there's an entire wing of the party and long tradition of Republican diplomats and policy. Tillerson is a Russian mole. He's been Putin's man from the beginning. That's why he got the job. This is a Russian client state administration taking orders directly from Moscow, and the first order was to tear down American soft power for forever. Tillerson is doing a fantastic job at the job he was brought in to do, subjugate America's international interests to Russia's.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:24 AM on October 17, 2017 [43 favorites]

It wouldn't be the first time that the world overreacted like that. If Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize largely for Not Being Dubya, the next Dem President will be given worldwide ticker-tape parades, the title of Jesus Jr. and an endless supply of their choice of nubile sex partners.

But actions speak louder than elections. And America's actions and global relations and stability will not change dramatically until America itself has a profound sea change and drives enough of the reactionary yahoos out of Congress.
posted by delfin at 7:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Kaitlin Collins(CNN): Trump on his claim other presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers: "You could ask General Kelly if he got a call from Obama."

JFC, you're using your Chief of Staff's dead son to defend your bullshit? What a piece of scum. Zero shame.

Trump's the guy in the movie who shoves the kid out of the way to get the life raft first (and then is subsequently eaten by the shark).
posted by leotrotsky at 7:29 AM on October 17, 2017 [44 favorites]

Trump on his claim other presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers: "You could ask General Kelly if he got a call from Obama."

I mean, just, WHY? If your entire political philosophy seems to consist of "Fuck Obama," and you actually believe your own horseshit about Obama not calling soldiers' families, WHY wouldn't your strategy be to show Obama up by calling the families on your own watch? Fuck Obama, right?

Oh, wait. The only thing less reliable than Trump's competence is his political philosophy, and he has the morals of a starving vulture. Carry on.
posted by Rykey at 7:32 AM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

I took that as an indictment of Trump, not a defense. That, like, he’s either unaware that Kelly’s son died, or he knew and was being totally disrespectful. I’m in a tamale coma though, so I may have misread it.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:33 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Y'all. I was completely off the grid for 6 days. No computer, no phone service, no wifi, no Twitter. It was a total hellscape because I was at a retreat for survivors of child sexual abuse, but it was also kind of glorious. No one even mentioned trump.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:33 AM on October 17, 2017 [44 favorites]

Trump on his claim other presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers: "You could ask General Kelly if he got a call from Obama."

Fuck you Donald J. Trump. Fuck You.

Obama’s Sacred Duty: Visiting the Wounded at Walter Reed

By GARDINER HARRISNOV. 29, 2016
posted by mikelieman at 7:37 AM on October 17, 2017 [24 favorites]

be the tycoon-eating shark you'd like to see in the world.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:40 AM on October 17, 2017 [22 favorites]

he has the morals of a starving vulture.

Hey now. Vultures are a vital part of a functioning ecology. Trump could never aspire to be as useful as a vulture.
posted by emjaybee at 7:40 AM on October 17, 2017 [73 favorites]

The average went up, Trump went down bigly. And ultimately this is pretty meaningless, except for the fact that he cares about it so much and it will bother him bigly.

Trump's net worth drops $600 million on Forbes' rich list, falls 92 spots
posted by chris24 at 7:49 AM on October 17, 2017 [35 favorites]

Oh, wait, that Kelly quote was from Trump? I thought was a comment to Trump. Never mind. I blame the tamales.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:52 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if Kelly didn't get a call because President Obama visited him in person.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 7:56 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

McConnell and Trump are like a very, very deranged version of the Tortoise and the Hare.

... racing down the Highway to Hell, dragging us along for the ride.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:58 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

At this point I side-eye any media product/outlet that Trump watches that doesn't address itself to the audience of one. These media outlets have real power; what they say, he believes.

Trump cares intensely about the Forbes rankings. The most moral way for them to use their influence is to bang together some bullshit argument that Trump's net worth has been very, very badly impacted by him assuming the Presidency — they could make up any reason, because the audience of one is stupid — and likewise that his net worth will rebound the second he resigns. Again, the reasoning doesn't have to be sound. Tell the moron that he'll be a trillionaire if he resigns tomorrow, and he'll resign tomorrow.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:00 AM on October 17, 2017 [40 favorites]

Trump should ask his chief of staff whether invoking Kelly's slain son to make a political attack and puff up a President's ego is honorable and appropriate.

From 2011: "Their struggle is your struggle," he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. "If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service and not support the cause for which they fight - our country - these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation."
......
Kelly has largely shunned public attention since his speech and his son's death. He discussed his speech and his son to provide insight into the lives and the burdens of military families.

"We are only one of 5,500 American families who have suffered the loss of a child in this war," he said in an e-mail. "The death of my boy simply cannot be made to seem any more tragic than the others."
posted by zarq at 8:04 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Or it could be that Obama didn’t call when Kelly’s son was killed and Trump’s narrow, shitty point holds; families of service people killed in service don’t always get calls from the President.
posted by notyou at 8:06 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Manu Raju on twitter: "If we fail on taxes," Lindsey Graham just told me, "our party will disintegrate."


may it be fucking so.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:06 AM on October 17, 2017 [91 favorites]

Trump's the guy in the movie who shoves the kid out of the way to get the life raft first (and then is subsequently eaten by the shark).

When does the eaten by the shark part happen? So far there has been lots of shoving and not nearly enough eaten by sharks.
posted by danielleh at 8:08 AM on October 17, 2017 [45 favorites]

Hey Kelly, how do you feel about watching Trump use your dead son to fluff his ego? You could end this, you know. You have that power. Or you could keep doing your job of maintaining the frail illusion of babysitting him. You must believe pretty deeply in the racist, brutal, and extinction-threatening policies and philosophies of your boss and his core of support. More deeply than the honor and memory of your son, I suppose.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:14 AM on October 17, 2017 [28 favorites]

Manu Raju on twitter: "If we fail on taxes," Lindsey Graham just told me, "our party will disintegrate."

I believe this. They have less than thirty days now, right? I just keep hoping there will be enough distractions and in-fighting to miss their deadline.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:17 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Manu Raju on twitter: "If we fail on taxes," Lindsey Graham just told me, "our party will disintegrate."

New thread reminder: I put some tax info, talking points, and resources up on my profile page that you can use as you see fit.
posted by melissasaurus at 8:24 AM on October 17, 2017 [42 favorites]

> They have less than thirty days now, right?

No draft plan has seen the light of day, no scoring from the CBO, no way to actually figure out how much is being given away to the top 1%, no Trump tax returns to assess his own claim that the tax bill won't be good for him.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are angrily dismissing claims about taxes rising on the poor and middle class with "you can't say that before you see the bill."

I expect that the bill will be unveiled with a furious propaganda push and a "this is it" sense of momentum. To kind of catapult the propaganda, if you will.

(OMG, I used to hate that loathsome smirk and that voice used to grate on my nerves. I didn't know I could think worse of an elected President - and how much worse.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:24 AM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

They have less than thirty days now, right?

There's no hard tax reform deadline like there was with Obamacare reconciliation, they're still setting the terms of how to actually pass it in the first place. There's not even a real bill with real language, all they've released is a joke of a skeleton outline. They passed new reconciliation instructions for the 2018 budget in the House, which are currently stalled in the Senate. This needs to get done before they actually pass the 2018 budget, which has to be done (or another CR) by December 7. But once they have new 2018 instructions passed, tax reform itself can be passed with 50 votes at any time next year, presumably until Sept 30, 2018 according to the Parliamentarian's ruling last time.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:25 AM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

What would party disintegration look like? I think if it can survive the waning days of the Bush administration, it's basically a cockroach.
posted by Coventry at 8:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Take five, bees. We're doing sharks now.
posted by petebest at 8:29 AM on October 17, 2017 [37 favorites]

New thread reminder: I put some tax info, talking points, and resources up on my profile page that you can use as you see fit.

melissasaurus, you are a god among dinosaurs.
posted by cooker girl at 8:35 AM on October 17, 2017 [44 favorites]

You know, it strikes me that the task before us as a civilization, upon which the fate of civilization depends, is figuring out the best strategy for manipulating a moron and then figuring out how to best deploy that strategy.

Also it strikes me that for most of history, taking and holding power has, in general, been the process of identifying powerful morons, figuring out the precise ways in which those powerful morons are moronic, and then figuring out how to winkle their power away from them by exploiting their moronicity.

If I am asked the question "what is culture?," the answer I'll give is "the collected set of strategies for taking power away from morons."
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:42 AM on October 17, 2017 [26 favorites]

I don't see why Graham thinks failing to pass tax reform now will doom them when Republicans have been running on a platform of outlawing all abortion for 30+ years now with no substantive national policy to show for it.

Failing to accomplish your critical agenda is a half-decent way to get your base to keep voting for you. It's not like someone upset the Republicans haven't cut tax rates on the rich to 0% will vote for a Democrat instead.
posted by 0xFCAF at 8:44 AM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

Graham’s we = incumbents who will see their campaign funding redirected to primary challengers. Doomed.
posted by notyou at 8:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

Also it strikes me that for most of history, taking and holding power has, in general, been the process of identifying powerful morons, figuring out the precise ways in which those powerful morons are moronic, and then figuring out how to winkle their power away from them by exploiting their moronicity.

Unfortunately, the powerful morons in this case are Republican voters, and the folks winkling power (and money) away from them are the interests behind the Republican party.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:50 AM on October 17, 2017

...figuring out how to winkle their power away from them by exploiting their moronicity

That's why The Fonz was such a powerful cultural figure. He was descended from an ancient line of Winklers.
posted by gurple at 8:50 AM on October 17, 2017 [22 favorites]

CNN: Marino out at DEA.

What, the system is working now, even a little bit? Huh.
posted by Melismata at 8:52 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

While he did not explain why he had not called their families, Mr. Trump said he had written letters to the family members over the weekend, which he said would be mailed later in the day or on Tuesday. He said he also planned to call them.

Just so we're all clear -- he hadn't yet sent anyone letters nor called anyone.

Also, all that stuff about how hard it is to write these letters or make the phone calls -- this isn't about you, Donny. It really, really isn't.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:54 AM on October 17, 2017 [56 favorites]

Republicans won't disintegrate. There is way too much Koch money advancing the careers of young replacements. Yeah, some senators might get replaced if they do not deliver on tax policy, but only due to the normal Koch shadow party process, not Bannon's rabble.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:57 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

While he did not explain why he had not called their families, Mr. Trump said he had written letters to the family members over the weekend, which he said would be mailed later in the day or on Tuesday. He said he also planned to call them.

the average six year old can a make more compelling excuse for why they haven't yet written grandma a thank-you letter for the birthday check

and yet here we are
somehow
posted by halation at 9:01 AM on October 17, 2017 [16 favorites]

Politico: Trump issues warning to McCain: 'At some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty'

Guys what happens when it stops being so pretty?
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:03 AM on October 17, 2017 [54 favorites]

the average six year old can a make more compelling excuse for why they haven't yet written grandma a thank-you letter for the birthday check

I'm pretty sure the President has people who can help him with this stuff. I'm pretty sure there are entire offices in the Pentagon dedicated to sending out these kind of letters. I'm pretty sure that all he has to do is sign at the bottom, if he really finds it too difficult to come up with something himself.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:10 AM on October 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Guys what happens when it stops being so pretty?

People stop being polite and start getting real?

He's not here to make friends?

How do I change this channel? Anyone?
posted by Salieri at 9:11 AM on October 17, 2017 [36 favorites]

can you get the PHONE
posted by entropicamericana at 9:12 AM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

The "Not Pretty" comment might be for the benefit of McCain's fellow republicans in the senate more than for the man himself.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:13 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

On the topic of John McCain, I'd like to bring up an incident from 1998.

For those who weren't politically aware at the time, attacks on Chelsea Clinton by the American right always vicious, misogynist, and frequent.

Which is probably why, at a fundraising dinner in 1998, John McCain felt comfortable with the following "joke": "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father."

In just a few words he managed to attack three different women, all with deeply misogynist smears. Chelsea, most obviously, was attacked for her looks, always a favorite subject for misogynists. Then Attorney General Reno got the simultaneously misogynist and transphobic attack of being accused of being manly, ugly, and gay. And, of course Hillary Clinton was subject to the homophobic attack accusing her of an affair with Janet Reno.

Months later John McCain issued a mealy mouthed sorry-not-sorry pseudo-apology. To Bill Clinton.

Not to the three people he actually attacked, but to the man he presumably saw as the true victim, or at least the responsible male owner of those three women who, to McCain, weren't actual people.

It's been 19 years since then, and McCain has still never apologized to the people he attacked that day.

And that tells you everything you need to know about John McCain.

If Trump and McCain can turn their destructive energies on each other and hurt one another I think that would likely be the best possible outcome.
posted by sotonohito at 9:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [202 favorites]

Trump on his claim other presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers: "You could ask General Kelly if he got a call from Obama."

Well? Did anyone?

Would Trump's Chief of Staff be able to say that Obama had called if he did?
posted by srboisvert at 9:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

The only problem with the idea that the base coming out in primaries and running extreme candidates is that they've won in the past. They'd win Utah's delegation because they'll have that magic R after their name, regardless of how wacky they are. So failing to pass tax reform might hurt them in purple states but I doubt it'd sink the party just because an angry Bannon's Tea Party was built.
posted by msbutah at 9:20 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

the average six year old can a make more compelling excuse for why they haven't yet written grandma a thank-you letter for the birthday check

"Just then, a squad of Nazi frogmen burst into my room..." (Doonesbury comic)
posted by Melismata at 9:24 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

I don't know if I have enough in me to make it through three and a fourth more years of this. I already feel five to ten years older already.

Huh. You know that thing where people become President, and they take the weight of the world on their shoulders, and then they seem to age twice as fast as normal? I guess if they just drop the weight of the world, then the premature aging hits the people it falls on instead.
posted by roystgnr at 9:25 AM on October 17, 2017 [27 favorites]

> At a fundraising dinner in 1998, John McCain felt comfortable with the following "joke"

And this was what destroyed John McCain's image in my eyes, when I learned about it in the 'oughts. (The Keating Five stuff was before I followed US politics.) When he picked Sarah Palin, others expressed disappointment, but I already knew not to expect anything better.

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran? Ha, ha, we're only joking about innocent civilians dying.

Likewise, with the more recent stuff - we already know Saint John has feet of clay. If he comes out on the right side of an issue, that's great, but you shouldn't expect it on any given topic.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:28 AM on October 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

Wow, didn't we all do this in the 2008 election threads?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:34 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

MetaFilter: lots of shoving and not nearly enough eaten by sharks
posted by Gelatin at 9:38 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I will lose my bet on Trump ever delivering on an 'at some point' promise (see also 'soon,' 'next week, I think,' and 'within the next two weeks'.)

I think Trumpish for this is "in a very short period of time"
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:45 AM on October 17, 2017

"Just then, a squad of Nazi frogmen burst into my room..." (Doonesbury comic)

Of course, now "a squad of Nazi frogmen" doesn't sound quite so outlandish, as long as we're talking about Twitter avatars...
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [39 favorites]

when Republicans have been running on a platform of outlawing all abortion for 30+ years now with no substantive national policy to show for it.

Hi, I would like to speak up for all the women who find it now impossible to get an abortion thanks to laws that require doctors to lie, clinics to close, and costs to go up to say: they've accomplished plenty.

If Roe v. Wade is a hollow shell it doesn't matter, from the point of view of those affected, whether it's toppled or not. Yet.

Also: they are coming for our birth control already, so, yeah, they've done a whole fucking lot in the last 30 years.
posted by emjaybee at 10:04 AM on October 17, 2017 [115 favorites]

Yes, and they are now defining life as starting at conception, which fucks with a lot of things.
posted by agregoli at 10:10 AM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

@goldengateblond
2nd Lt. Robert Kelly was married. Unless protocol has changed, the call would’ve gone to his wife.
posted by chris24 at 10:11 AM on October 17, 2017 [50 favorites]

Not entirely sure they would take his call.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:14 AM on October 17, 2017

mmascolino: "NPR News: Tom Marino, Trump's Pick As Drug Czar, Withdraws After Damaging Opioid Report"

This is great news. Marino would have been disastrous at DEA, and his district would have been a very challenging pickup for the Dems.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:18 AM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

First poll showing Gillispie up in VA-Gov.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:18 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

On the other hand, $$$ numbers:

Northam [D] raised $7.2M in Sept, $5.7M cash on hand
Gillespie [R] raised $4.4M in Sept, $2.5M cash on hand
posted by Chrysostom at 10:21 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

One thing I've been thinking is that our cynical joking about politicians and lies has really helped Trump.

A huge number of people like to gripe and joke about how often politicians lie and affect a worldly condescending attitude towards anyone "naive" enough to expresses the slightest concern or shock about a politician lying.

"How do you know a politician is lying? You can see his lips moving! HAWHAWHAW!"

Which means that when Trump came along as a person who really, truly, did lie a lot no one cared. All politicians lie, right, so Trump is no different. Except, of coruse, he is.

In 2016 we saw Hillary Clinton, a woman who told fewer lies than almost everyone else in the race (back in the primary days when there were several people in the race) and almost no lies of significance, painted as being inherently dishonest and bad.

While Trump, who not merely told more lies than everyone else in the race but literally an order of magnitude more lies, and lies about issues of substance, was presented as a straight talker who tells it like it is.

When anyone tried to point out that Trump lied with a frequency that seemed almost pathological, it was brushed aside as irrelevant, all politicians lie all the time, right?

I'm not arguing this was the one weird trick that won Trump the election, but I do think the cynical, and false, view of politicians as inveterate liars was a factor. It rendered the truth, that Donald Trump is a preposterously frequent liar, worthless.

Even today, if you bring up the fact that Trump is lying about any particular thing it will mostly be shrugged off. Who cares, all politicians lie. His tax "plan" is nothing more than a handful of ill conceived tax cuts for the very rich and he's saying it's a great boon to the middle class? So what, all politicians lie. He says Obama never phoned the families of dead soldiers? So what, all politicians lie.

As a nation we have managed to cynic ourselves into a place where to say that any politician is more truthful than another is viewed at best as crippling naivete and at worst as mere partisan smearmongering. We have turned the words "honest politician" into a joke, and in so doing have paved the way for Trump.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do think it is at least a piece of our deeper problem.
posted by sotonohito at 10:25 AM on October 17, 2017 [93 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that all he has to do is sign at the bottom

If he can't remember to do that for his own EOs, then how's he going to manage it for a letter of condolence?
posted by elsietheeel at 10:25 AM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

Two other new polls in VA gov:

Roanoke: Northam up 50-44

CNU: Northam up 48-44
posted by Chrysostom at 10:27 AM on October 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

That there’s even a contest between them given that Gillespie is a race baiting pants on head cuckoo lunatic is shameful for us as a species.
posted by Talez at 10:32 AM on October 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

And most of the time, politicians really do keep their promises.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:33 AM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

@kylegriffin1:
.@PeterAlexander on MSNBC: Kelly and wife went to 2011 Gold Star families WH breakfast, sat at FLOTUS's table, per source familiar w/event.
posted by chris24 at 10:33 AM on October 17, 2017 [53 favorites]

So no call but a face to face over breakfast with other families?

Probably you oughta shutup about this now Mr President.

But we all know you won't though.
posted by notyou at 10:38 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

That there’s even a contest between them given that Gillespie is a race baiting pants on head cuckoo lunatic is shameful for us as a species.

And another indictment on the competancy of the Democratic party consultant class. And the national progressive figures who can't seem bothered to help him. The Northam campaign seems invisible. Gillispie's racist ads are everywhere. I can't tell you what Northam's campaign theme or slogan is other than "I'm a doctor". Huh, apparently it's "For Virginia's Future". That's what were running with against Gillispie's "Northam is leading the Mexicans to kill you in your sleep".
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:39 AM on October 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

So no call but a face to face over breakfast with other families?

Probably you oughta shutup about this now Mr President.

Sooo...Called it?

It's Trump's Razor--the stupidest explanation is usually the best explanation.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 10:44 AM on October 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

And the national progressive figures who can't seem bothered to help him.

I believe the Northam campaign made a decision not to bring in much outside help so as not to nationalize the race. It's much easier for republicans to attack the usual liberal boogeymen (and boogeywomen and boogeypeopleofcolor) than it is to actually run against Northam on the issues. Virginians like to vote for boring politicians, Northam is doing great by that metric.
posted by peeedro at 10:46 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

McDonnell won in 2010 as VA gov by just saying jobs a lot.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

One thing I've been thinking is that our cynical joking about politicians and lies has really helped Trump.

She didn't vote for Trump, but I often find myself in a weird place while talking to my mom about this issue. She's extremely mistrustful of, like, everyone she's not related to (she used to work at a bank in the fraud department, so she's seen a lot of liars), but simultaneously has that Objectivist romantic view of human potential whereby if you just let people be people with no bummer laws and taxes and stuff, we'd all be perfectly rational, charitable, self-actualized beings. I'm the opposite. I think that human nature, to quote Xunzi, stinks. Overall we kind of suck and our brains are not wired to be particularly good at stuff like rational behavior, charity, or self-actualization. But also that people are complicated, our world is complicated, and that individual people and their behavior deserve to be looked at with an open mind. I don't tend to assume that a politician who did $thing did so purely out of greed or malevolence. Not until I see some evidence. Show me the evidence and I'm perfectly willing to believe that a human being is just as sucky as human beings are capable of being. But I don't like to assume.

My mom is a vote-the-bums-out voter. If a politician does not ring in a new era of utopian bliss immediately upon election, they're obviously corrupt and need to go. I'm a very pragmatic better-is-good (to quote Obama) voter who generally looks for evidence that a politician has been effective or is at least trying to be within the confines of whatever fucked up legislative situation they're forced into.

Also? Being a politician suuuuuucks, and I think that there are a couple kinds of people who are good with dealing with how utterly awful that job is: people who really care and people who love power. You have to have a strong, strong motivator to get you through that gig. (I have a friend who is the mayor of a small town outside the city and she's always trying to convince me to run for office with one breath and then with the next complaining about how much being an elected official blows.) For people who clearly are not power-mad monsters, I think the only other conclusion is that they really do care. They still might not be good at their jobs, and they still might be very wrong about a lot of things, but they aren't in it for corrupt reasons and they're probably not liars.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:54 AM on October 17, 2017 [23 favorites]

*sigh*

Remember that whole debacle with the USNS Comfort? Yeah, about that....

CNN; There's a hospital ship waiting for sick Puerto Ricans -- but no one knows how to get on it

Clinics that are overwhelmed with patients and staff say they don't even know how to begin sending cases to the ship. Doctors say there's a rumor that patients have to be admitted to a central hospital before they can be transferred to the Comfort. Only 33 of the 250 beds on the Comfort -- 13% -- are being used, nearly two weeks after the ship arrived.

posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:59 AM on October 17, 2017 [56 favorites]

Florida's Governor Declares State Of Emergency Ahead Of Richard Spencer Speech (NPR, Oct. 17, 2017 -- not an Onion article).

When Hurricane Irma was bearing down on Florida last month, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency. On Monday, he did the same thing in Alachua County, ahead of a speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

"We live in a country where everyone has the right to voice their opinion, however, we have zero tolerance for violence and public safety is always our number one priority," Scott said in a statement. "This executive order is an additional step to ensure that the University of Florida and the entire community is prepared so everyone can stay safe."

This wasn't Rick Scott acting on his own, it came following request from Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell, and allows the state and Sheriff Darnell to quickly coordinate resources from other state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM on October 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

One aspect of the "oh, all politicians are like that" thing sonohito describes still eludes me a bit... why does DJT uniquely benefit? The average American is still genuinely (I think?) bothered by perceived dishonesty on the part of just about anyone besides him.

Of course white male privilege is the largest explanatory factor for the double standard, but I think there's something else, because I can't imagine even Paul Ryan getting a pass from Republicans for the same stuff. Perhaps DJT's sheer commitment to awfulness is the key, because it's interpreted as a lack of pretense. I remember one analysis of media coverage last year that said Trump made for a "boring villain" and he thereby benefited from journalists more interested in painting Hillary as (and this is key) secretly sneaky. A "Trump Is Generally Bad" type headline felt to them like a "dog bites man" story; where's the juice in that?

And yet... he still lies so damn much, instead of truly/sincerely committing to his repulsive outlook. People see an anti-Trump message in that New Yorker cartoon where sheep admire a "Vote Wolf, I Will Eat You" poster as "telling it like it is". But Donald doesn't quite do that, does he? He promises great healthcare, etc. So what is the whole story here?
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

By the way, volunteer for Northam here.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:11 AM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Graham is worried that the Republican base will turn out -- in the 2018 primaries, and vote out the sitting incumbents in favor of extremists who are less electable and will go on to lose in the 2018 general

You know what the GOP incumbents need?

They need a union.

If they come together to defy the Kochs, the Kochs will have a bit of a problem because their war chest isn't bottomless.

Come on, GOP. Time for a union card check.
posted by ocschwar at 11:14 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Missed the edit window but wanted to add: If the poster in that cartoon more accurately reflected DJT, it would be something like "Yes I am a wolf! But I've never eaten a sheep. Never would. Maybe thought about it. Ate one or two at most. My opponents, they eat so many sheep. Which is just horrible. Innocent sheep. Beautiful sheep! Sheep are completely disgusting, so I'd never dream of touching one, even to save its life, let alone kill it..."
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:16 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

Supposedly breaking news - NYT: Senators Reach Deal to Fund Subsidies to Health Insurers

Two leading senators have reached a bipartisan deal to provide funding for critical subsidies to health insurers that President Trump said last week that he would cut off, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said Tuesday. ... As one part of the deal, the subsidies would be funded for two years, a step that would provide at least short-term certainty to insurers. The subsidies, known as cost-sharing reductions, lower out-of-pocket costs for low-income consumers. ... Mr. Alexander told reporters on Monday that Mr. Trump had encouraged him to reach a deal with Ms. Murray.

I guess that fig leaf allows them to sell it as not entirely a fat middle finger to the incompetent-racist-in-chief.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:17 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

(I forgot to add the best part:)

But it remains to be seen whether conservative-leaning Republicans will get on board with the agreement, and whether the House will entertain it.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:18 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

And by "best part" you mean "the part that really matters in the end."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:19 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

One aspect of the "oh, all politicians are like that" thing sonohito describes still eludes me a bit... why does DJT uniquely benefit? The average American is still genuinely (I think?) bothered by perceived dishonesty on the part of just about anyone besides him.

Because his narrative rings true to them, no matter what the facts or supporting details say. Those change all the time anyway. It's the narrative that matters.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:20 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

InTheYear2017: If the poster in that cartoon more accurately reflected DJT, it would be something like "Yes I am a wolf! But I've never eaten a sheep. Never would. Maybe thought about it. Ate one or two at most. My opponents, they eat so many sheep. Which is just horrible. Innocent sheep. Beautiful sheep! Sheep are completely disgusting, so I'd never dream of touching one, even to save its life, let alone kill it..."

But then the joke doesn't work anymore, does it.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:20 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

provide funding for critical subsidies to health insurers that President Trump said last week

Maybe they'll eventually repeal and replace the whole thing piece by piece, ship-of-Theseus style.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 11:21 AM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Immigration Judges Warn Against Trump Administration Benchmarks (NPR, Oct. 16, 2017)

The Trump administration is preparing to impose new benchmarks on immigration judges to speed through a backlog of more than 600,000 cases in U.S. immigration courts. But judges warn the change could hurt public confidence and violate the right to due process.

Huh, the racist in chief and his motley crew didn't think beyond "ramp up immigration raids"? Ya don't say. Which is my sarcastic way of saying oh shit, this is going to make life for those poor people going through immigration courts even worse.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:21 AM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

Because his narrative rings true to them, no matter what the facts or supporting details say. Those change all the time anyway. It's the narrative that matters.

and because he loudly, shrilly, repeatedly, and enthusiastically shrieks all the disgusting hateful things that they themselves believe about everyone who is different from them. if, in between these bigoted shriekings, he wants to also shriek that neptune is gay and we should blow it up, they will not care at all when 12 billion scientists are like okay first of all what the fuck. all they care about is the loud validation of their deranged hate.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:25 AM on October 17, 2017 [39 favorites]

RedOrGreen: "I guess that fig leaf allows them to sell it as not entirely a fat middle finger to the incompetent-racist-in-chief."

Eh, all he is looking for is something he can sign and point to and say, "I did that." Content is pretty much not an interest for him.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:26 AM on October 17, 2017

The Trump administration is preparing to impose new benchmarks on immigration judges to speed through a backlog of more than 600,000 cases in U.S. immigration courts. But judges warn the change could hurt public confidence and violate the right to due process.

I mean, one way to rapidly move through thousands of cases would be to quickly dismiss them, right?

They're ALJs, not Article III judges, but they aren't evaluated by the agency for whom they conduct hearings, and can only be dismissed for good cause.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:27 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is great news. Marino would have been disastrous at DEA, and his district would have been a very challenging pickup for the Dems.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:18 AM on October 17 [2 favorites +] [!]

Don't know how you could make the DEA any more of a disaster than it already is. It does play a role in regulating pharma, but that's mostly FDA. I'd rather users be taking diverted licit pharmaceuticals with quality and quantity control, proper labeling, etc., than the street drugs the DEA props up price-wise by piece-meal enforcement of low-level dealers and users and generally failing at stopping importation or manufacture of large quantities.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:30 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

poffin boffin: "he wants to also shriek that neptune is gay"

Uranus, surely.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:30 AM on October 17, 2017 [18 favorites]

Don't know how you could make the DEA any more of a disaster than it already is.

Marino is very much a pro-War On Drugs guy (ironically enough). Not that we can expect anything good with Sessions as AG, but Marino is the equivalent of Puritt at EPA.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:32 AM on October 17, 2017

One aspect of the "oh, all politicians are like that" thing sonohito describes still eludes me a bit... why does DJT uniquely benefit?

My thought is that since he lies so much more than other politicians he uniquely benefits by being able to tell self serving lies without facing consequences.

Sure, in theory people don't like lying politicians. But in practice if there's a belief that all politicians lie, then lying more than the other politicians isn't really going to hurt you. The penalty for lying is so small, thanks to our belief that lying is intrensic to politicians, that the winning strategy is to disregard the truth entirely and simply say whatever your base wants to hear.

Trump is quite gifted at that.

And if we say "he's lying" they can justify their continued support for him by saying "so what, all politicians lie, at least he's trying to do what's right!"

Further, since all politicians lie, anyone pointing out that one particular politician is lying must have nothing but base partisan motives for doing so, since all politicians lie.

There's an unspoken "and since they all lie then all lies they tell are of equal importance" and "since they all lie therefore all politicians are equal in the frequency of their untruths".
posted by sotonohito at 11:36 AM on October 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

This wasn't Rick Scott acting on his own, it came following request from Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell, and allows the state and Sheriff Darnell to quickly coordinate resources from other state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies.

Any bets on the additional law enforcement being turned against the anti-nazi protestors, no matter what.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:37 AM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

BREAKING: Hawaii judge blocks latest travel ban executive order [tweet from @lawrencehurley, Reuters legal reporter; no further info yet]
posted by melissasaurus at 11:47 AM on October 17, 2017 [54 favorites]

Meanwhile, we continue to see real world consequences for the way the far right on the internet grooms and trains their members. Lane Davis, a Trump supporter active in several pro-Trump and anti-feminist spaces on reddit and youtube, who was a writer for a far right wing blog, murdered his father after he got riled reading about pizzagate and screamed that his father was a "leftist pedophile".

His posting history on reddit is vanishing, the blog he wrote for is deleting his entire output.

The phrase we're looking for here is "stochastic right wing terrorism".

In traditional terrorism, there's organization, terrorists are recruited and trained, and given instructions.

With stochastic terrorism people vulnerable to the propaganda of the terrorists are saturated with wild claims about the supposed evils of the terrorist's targets until one of them acts on those beliefs and strikes out in an essentially random and unpredictable way at a target.

This is the favored way the so-called "pro-life" movement produces most of its terrorists, we've seen examples of ISIS and other Islamist terrorist organizations using similar methods, and now we're seeing that the alt right organizations are having similar success with their own methods of producing stochastic terrorism.

The people who organize and run the various far right fever swamps of the internet are putting on their very shocked faces and predictably claiming that Davis was mentally ill, a lone wolf, and all the other words the establishment media uses in order to avoid calling white Christian men terrorists.
posted by sotonohito at 11:47 AM on October 17, 2017 [104 favorites]

I just read this piece by Josh Marshall, "Is Trump coming apart?" and now I'm feeling queasy.

Adam Smith said there is a “great deal of ruin in a nation”. Similarly, there’s a lot of crazy in Donald Trump. ... Yes, he’s erratic, unstable, completely unsuited to any office of public trust, let alone the presidency. But is he getting worse? Weirder? Are we really hitting some breaking point or unraveling? That’s where I’m skeptical. Or where I was skeptical.

It's worth reading, even if it is just to brace yourself. There's (more) turbulence ahead.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

at a fundraising dinner in 1998, John McCain felt comfortable with the following "joke": "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father."

Rush Limbaugh earns a special spot in hell for his vicious joke about Chelsea as well. That was a particularly low spot in politics, when the Republican male leadership felt comfortable joking about the looks of a young girl because her parents were Democrats.

I read the New Yorker piece on Pence that was linked by mostly vowels. Very interesting and changes my feelings about Pence as a replacement President. Of course I knew that was an anti-gay, anti-woman Christian but I didn't realize how deeply he is backed by the Kochs.

Two bits of trivia I learned was that Pence lost 100lbs in the 90s and managed to keep it off. Quite an achievement. Also he lost his first two campaigns and had to write an op-ed apologizing for how mean spirited his second, failing campaign was.

The most important part of the article explains his role as head of Trump's transition team. It reminded me of that zombie fungus that takes over ant brains and turns them into slaves. Trump was not backed by the Koch brothers because he had a populist agenda that was antithetical to their ends. However, once Pence took over the transition team he threw away Chris Christie's 30 binders of nominee suggestions and put in all Koch-approved people, like Pruitt and Betsy DeVos. It explains why Trump ran on raising taxes for the wealthy and a massive infrastructure plan but instead is delivering tax cuts for the wealthiest and deregulating industry. The Kochs will be saving billions.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:51 AM on October 17, 2017 [38 favorites]

The "difference" between Trump and "normal" politicians (especially for his most eager supporters) is that he has indeed lied much more, but NOT in a political forum, AND much more to his own benefit. His own successful dishonesty and profiting from it sets him apart (even if he relied on a couple generations of dishonest politicians, thank you New York Mayors and DAs, to stay out of jail all his life).

And I just assumed that Pence was picked as running mate to be the equivalent of Nixon's Agnew. "Yes, you could get rid of him but then look at what you'll get!" And needs to be dealt with similarly - get rid of him first.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:58 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

> once Pence took over the transition team he threw away Chris Christie's 30 binders of nominee suggestions and put in all Koch-approved people, like Pruitt and Betsy DeVos. It explains why Trump ran on raising taxes for the wealthy and a massive infrastructure plan but instead is delivering tax cuts for the wealthiest and deregulating industry. The Kochs will be saving billions.

And remember, Manafort selected Pence. Regardless of whether the Kochs are in on the game, it's known that Putin prefers the Koch plan to whatever Christie was trying to do.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:59 AM on October 17, 2017 [31 favorites]

BREAKING: Hawaii judge blocks latest travel ban executive order [tweet from @lawrencehurley, Reuters legal reporter; no further info yet]

Here's the court order (40 page pdf). BuzzFeed is building a story around it over here. The introduction:

Professional athletes mirror the federal government in this respect: they operate within a set of rules, and when one among them forsakes those rules in favor of his own, problems ensue. And so it goes with EO-3.

posted by zachlipton at 12:02 PM on October 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

Senators reach tentative deal on ObamaCare insurer payments

Apparently there's an Alexander-Murray deal. Which Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan still have to allow a vote on.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:17 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Another day, another catalog of how Rex Tillerson has destroyed the State Department and all of American foreign policy in 9 months: Rex Tillerson and the Unraveling of the State Department

There's a lot in here, but this bit is worth noting:

Tillerson let out a short sigh. “Look, on the president’s tweets,” he said, “I take what the president tweets out as his form of communicating, and I build it into my strategies and my tactics. How can I use that? How do I want to use that? And in a dynamic situation, like we deal with here all the time — and you can go walk around the world, they’re all dynamic — things happen. You wake up the next morning, something’s happened. I wake up the next morning, the president’s got a tweet out there. So I think about, O.K., that’s a new condition. How do I want to use that?” Tillerson continued: “Our strategies and the tactics we’re using to advance the policies have to be resilient enough to accommodate unknowns, O.K.? So if you want to put that in an unknown category, you can. It certainly kind of comes out that even I would say, ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’ But it doesn’t mean our strategies are not resilient enough to accommodate it.”

Our strategies have to be resilient enough to accommodate the President sending out obnoxious tweets without talking to anyone. And the Secretary of State can just say that as if it makes sense. That's where we are as a country.

Apparently there's an Alexander-Murray deal. Which Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan still have to allow a vote on.

There's no bill text yet (they're reportedly trying to figure out the language to avoid letting insurers double-dip: since many states have employed strategies to make up for the lack of CSR payments, funding the CSRs now means undoing all that somehow, and different states and insurers did different things) and the Freedom Caucus folks are already in "hell no" territory. I mean, it could happen, but it's far from done, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some Senator ruin the whole thing by demanding amendments.
posted by zachlipton at 12:26 PM on October 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

When looking at any of Rick Scott's actions in Florida, remember that he wants Bill Nelson's Senate seat. Anytime he does what looks like the right thing to do, that is probably the explanation.
posted by wittgenstein at 12:29 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

With stochastic terrorism people vulnerable to the propaganda of the terrorists are saturated with wild claims about the supposed evils of the terrorist's targets until one of them acts on those beliefs and strikes out in an essentially random and unpredictable way at a target.

This is the favored way the so-called "pro-life" movement produces most of its terrorists...

"...Pilate...took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. 'I am innocent of this man's blood,' he said. 'It is your responsibility!'"

posted by Mental Wimp at 12:30 PM on October 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

Politico: Trump issues warning to McCain: 'At some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty'

McCain's response, "I have faced tougher adversaries."
posted by zabuni at 12:39 PM on October 17, 2017 [28 favorites]

Apparently they canceled the diya lighting and Diwali observance scheduled for the Oval Office this afternoon. Wondering if someone is having trouble identifying discrete groups of brown people and this isn't some reaction to losing on Muslim Ban 3.0.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:46 PM on October 17, 2017 [22 favorites]

Shocking! I never would have guessed they'd cancel that!
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:50 PM on October 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

Apparently they canceled the diya lighting and Diwali observance

They cancelled the Eid dinner last month as well.
posted by zarq at 12:54 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

The pool report says the event wasn't cancelled, but they closed it to the press suddenly and without explanation.

What? Trump can acknowledge non-white people but only if nobody is there to see it?
posted by zachlipton at 12:58 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Maybe they're afraid a member of the press corps will ask him about his War on Brown People.
posted by zarq at 12:59 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

"No, I don't have a Diwali for you. Go get a job you bum."
posted by loquacious at 1:05 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

maybe they're afraid someone will ask Trump what Diwali actually is
posted by lalex at 15:01 on October 17 [4 favorites +] [!]

"Go ahead, Goyal"
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:05 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Our strategies have to be resilient enough to accommodate the President sending out obnoxious tweets without talking to anyone. And the Secretary of State can just say that as if it makes sense. That's where we are as a country.

Someone here pointed out a few threads ago that the USA is basically Modern Democracy 1.0, and the President is effectively a term-limited monarch. What do you do in a monarchy if the monarch is crazy or otherwise unfit for office? You work around them, trying to avoid blatant policy rifts, you empower ministers to set policy on their own, and you start looking at ways to install a regency.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:05 PM on October 17, 2017 [20 favorites]

My local listener sponsored radio station (WMNF) played this speech yesterday (Monday, the 16th), and I really wanted to share it with you all.
Chris Hedges on "Stop Fascism".
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 1:08 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

"I will build a great, great Diwali on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that Diwali. Mark my words."
posted by kirkaracha at 1:12 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

"Wall-E is great, I heard Barron really loved that robot movie. Huge box office, huge."
posted by PenDevil at 1:14 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

> What do you do in a monarchy if the monarch is crazy or otherwise unfit for office? You work around them, trying to avoid blatant policy rifts, you empower ministers to set policy on their own, and you start looking at ways to install a regency.

And this has across historical time been more common than any other arrangement of affairs. "crazy idiot hereditary aristocracy" is one of the low-energy states that human societies fall into; anything more sophisticated than that requires continual effort.

I'm still hung up on how control of the media functions as power under the trump organization's regime. We're used to situations wherein media control is power because the media can be used to influence large masses of people to support a particular ideology, or install a particular ruler, or just to spend their money a particular way. We spent the 20th century, and the start of the 21st century, learning propaganda and marketing techniques for exercising this type of power, for swaying the masses — but across the broad arc of history, the masses mattering is an anomaly. We've fallen back into our default state, where a few idiot aristocrats matter and no one else does, and so now this vast complex machinery meant to sway the masses is by necessity laser-targeted at one moron.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:19 PM on October 17, 2017 [30 favorites]

melissasaurus: BREAKING: Hawaii judge blocks latest travel ban executive order

As reported by NPR:

the state of Hawaii did not challenge the ban as it applies to North Koreans or Venezuelans. Therefore, the judge's restraining order does not apply to those portions of the ban, which can be enforced starting Wednesday.

Weird omissions.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:21 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think Graham accidentally just gave away the game with that tax cut quote. Like, we on the blue all know that the GOP doesn't give a shit about any laws or whatever. We know literally the only thing that matters to them is getting tax cuts for themselves and their super wealthy friends and donors. BUT, they've at least been pretending, for their base's sake, that they care about other stuff.

If they can't get tax cuts then they'll disintegrate? They still have over a year of controlling both the executive and legislative! They could take the loss in the Tax Cuts game and still end abortion and gay marriage, start wars all over the Middle East and parts of Asia. Cut the EPA, the Department of Ed, and whatever else they want. Build a border wall. End Obamacare. Make English the official language and ban Islam. Tax green energy into oblivion and give bigger subsidies to carbon energy. Criminalize the consumption of arugula and make it a law that good American beef be included in every meal. With a side order of "Some Endangered Species, don't even care which." Add gun ownership to the mandatory things boys and girls do when they turn 18. Pass a nationwide Voter Id law.

I mean, they can't do all those things. But for Graham to basically say "Yeah, we're really only in it for the tax cuts. Without those there's not really much this party stands together for" is kind of astounding.
posted by jermsplan at 1:22 PM on October 17, 2017 [23 favorites]

Those omissions aren't all THAT weird though, right? Did we not already have restrictive policies in place for North Koreans and Venezuelan government officials?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:23 PM on October 17, 2017

T.D. Strange: "First poll showing Gillispie up in VA-Gov."

Dave Weigel points out that this poll assumes a whiter and more Republican electorate than 2014 midterms (or the 2013 governor race), which...I dunno. I don't think Monmouth has polled VA before this race, either (they are out of NJ), so they may be missing some things.

All of which is not to urge complacency, just that there are some eyebrow-raisers with this poll. Throw it in the average, and keep working.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:24 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

What do you do in a monarchy if the monarch is crazy or otherwise unfit for office?

Quite frequently, they have a "hunting accident."
posted by Chrysostom at 1:27 PM on October 17, 2017 [35 favorites]

Quite frequently, they have a "hunting accident."

HE WAS A 6/5/6 DAMMIT! Why can't I issue an edict to ban hunting?
posted by Talez at 1:41 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Someone here pointed out a few threads ago that the USA is basically Modern Democracy 1.0, and the President is effectively a term-limited monarch.

This is luckily not entirely true. As we established here repeatedly during Obama, the president is quite limited in their powers. Pointing this out does not minimize the real harm being done right now, but if the president even had the powers normally given to a PM with majority control, the scope of the destruction would already be much, much wider, probably including much of social security, medicaid, most of the other social services the federal government provides; broad restrictions on immigrants, minorities and women; and gigantic tax cuts crippling the US for years to come. Between the weakness of the presidency, the intransigence of other Republicans, and the multi-front resistance being waged by everyone on the left, Trump's destructions have been severely circumscribed relative to what he might have accomplished in other democratic or non-democratic systems. Again -- this isn't to minimize the death and destruction he has successfully caused. But it's worth occasionally pointing out that the institutional levers that we are all madly pushing on are having significant effects, and this is helped by the inherently gridlocked nature of our 1.0 democratic system.
posted by chortly at 1:44 PM on October 17, 2017 [22 favorites]

Quite frequently, they have a "hunting accident."

Today's "sentence that makes total sense in 2017 but would be blindingly incoherent two years earlier:"

Where's Dick Cheney when we need him?
posted by Mayor West at 1:47 PM on October 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

yes but if we had a modern system, the republicans would not have won because the numbers favor democrats, sooo
posted by entropicamericana at 1:47 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh god, someone forgot to take the keyboard away from Lessig. I do not understand how he can be so blind to reality.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:48 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

It’ll be a golfing accident.
posted by notyou at 1:51 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

[picks card from Community Chest] "You are participating in US democracy, a 1.0 democratic system - Advance to Pennsylvania Avenue."

[picks card from Chance]: "You have been screwed by The Electoral College, a half-baked idea the Founders tried out in the US democracy beta and forgot to remove from the final version. You do NOT advance to Pennsylvania Avenue. Sad."
posted by mosk at 1:53 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

OMG, that Lessig article. From the comments: "Folks, we've just seen a man assume a spherical cow skating on a frictionless surface."
posted by maudlin at 1:54 PM on October 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

Oh god, someone forgot to take the keyboard away from Lessig.

Has he heard about Mefi's plan to increase the House to 40k representatives? We need to buy Larry a Metafilter account, he'd do less harm to his reputation here.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:57 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

the state of Hawaii did not challenge the ban as it applies to North Koreans or Venezuelans. Therefore, the judge's restraining order does not apply to those portions of the ban, which can be enforced starting Wednesday.

Weird omissions.

Legal cases live or die by legal standing, so it's entirely possible the challenge being answered here is from folks who don't have possible NK or Venezuelan connections. Or perhaps the people signed onto the case with relations from that country have less immediately compelling situations so they don't get a part of the RO.
posted by phearlez at 2:01 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

If you haven't already commented, you (or your like-minded people) have the rest of TODAY to comment on the Department of Homeland Security's proposed updating of the " Alien File, Index, and National File Tracking System of Records notice to: (1) Redefine which records constitute the official record of an individual's immigration history to include the following materials and formats: . . . (5) expand the categories of records to include the following: . . . social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results . . . (11) update record source categories to include publicly available information obtained from the internet, public records, public institutions, interviewees, commercial data providers . . . Categories of Individuals Covered By The System: . . . Relatives and associates of any of the individuals listed above who are subject to the INA . . . " ("Associates"?? Am I wrong to think that that line -- about 2/3 of the way down the page -- encompasses born US Citizens?)

They're at 2745 comments.. Yes, they don't give a shit about We The People, but pushing back by We The People has thrown wrenches in their Muslim Ban, ACA repeal, etc. We don't have to make it easy for them to fuck us over.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 2:04 PM on October 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Has he heard about Mefi's plan to increase the House to 40k representatives?

Someone suggested 40,000? Or 40,000 citizens per rep?

Because the highest I've ever suggested is 6,500 and I'm typically Metafilter's house expansion nutjob and I don't like to think I've been outdone.
posted by Talez at 2:06 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

40,000 representatives per citizen. It's the only way to be sure.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:07 PM on October 17, 2017 [50 favorites]

Sadly, that would be unconstitutional because you can't have less than 30,000 citizens per rep.
posted by Talez at 2:09 PM on October 17, 2017

Clearly we need more Constitutions.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:10 PM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

Crisis on infinite constitutions
posted by supercrayon at 2:11 PM on October 17, 2017 [27 favorites]

Wasn't that a Marvel movie?
posted by Talez at 2:12 PM on October 17, 2017

no it was an episode of star trak
posted by entropicamericana at 2:16 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

...Mefi's plan to increase the House to 40k representatives?

Why?
posted by zarq at 2:16 PM on October 17, 2017

Back in the sixties there was this novel, Superstoe, about a bunch of academics that take over and then reconstruct the US government. One of their innovations was to shut down congress and institute everybody voting on everything. To make voting easy they installed all the voting machines in bars. Turns out everybody really doesn't care that much about voting on anything. Maybe high numbers in congress isn't the answer. I prefer having a number of ethical and intelligent people untainted by campaign money donations. I'm a fantasist.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:17 PM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Can we maybe steer clear of discussing purely theoretical government changes in this thread?
posted by agregoli at 2:18 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

Quite frequently, they have a "hunting accident."
...
It’ll be a golfing accident.

The continued survival of this walking existential threat to the country is why I don't ever want to hear anybody's bullshit about secret-government-cabal-domestic-assassinations ever again. Not in my lifetime.

Internet conspiracy guys can fuck off. Those fantasies aren't just implausible. They're offensively useless.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:19 PM on October 17, 2017 [20 favorites]

the state of Hawaii did not challenge the ban as it applies to North Koreans or Venezuelans. Therefore, the judge's restraining order does not apply to those portions of the ban, which can be enforced starting Wednesday.

Weird omissions.

I'm almost certain this is because the ban (and the previous bans) have been challenged on the grounds that they target Muslims, and the evidence is every time Trump has said "Muslim ban." NK and Venezuela are not sending Muslims to the US, and so the same argument doesn't apply.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 2:21 PM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Lessig's column wasn't "stupid" if you accept it for what it probably really is: either (1) really really really wishful thinking that his long-held reputation got him the opportunity to write and make a few bucks from, (2) an attempt at non-dystopian sci-fi from a writer with zero experience at the field or (3) a demonstration of how Medium has become worthless (I still think of Ev Williams as NOT the founder/creator/co-founder/co-creator of Blogger, Twitter and Medium, but as the guy who fired Matt Haughey before he sold out and cashed in the first time).
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:34 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

OMG njohnson! Thank you for that link! I read Superstoe many years ago, and I was telling someone about it the other day, trying to remember what it was called. Synchronicity strikes!
posted by vibrotronica at 2:36 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Has he heard about Mefi's plan to increase the House to 40k representatives?


So our campaign will hinge on winning the White House and making 40k reps?

WH:40K In the grim blueness of the far future there is only snark
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:37 PM on October 17, 2017 [36 favorites]

W(D)-40K, surely.
posted by maxwelton at 2:42 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Spicer interviewed by Mueller's team
The former press secretary met with prosecutors in the Russia probe on Monday.

Somewhere there's a tape of this, and I need to see that tape reeeeeeeeeal bad.
posted by Capt. Renault at 2:44 PM on October 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Rand Paul endorses Roy Moore.

He's a principled libertarian, you know.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:55 PM on October 17, 2017 [33 favorites]

The guy who got famous for disobeying a court order to stop shitting on the First Amendment is really the kind of strong defender of the Constitution that Rand Paul wants to see in office.
posted by 0xFCAF at 2:58 PM on October 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

Well, they don't really want staunch defenders of the Constitution; after all, the document is old and full of archaic, hard to understand language that leads to bizarre liberal rulings like "people who are terribly immoral have the right to get married" and "people have a right to privacy."

They want defenders of the Constitution that should be, the Constitution that they'll put into place as soon as (1) they controll all three branches and (2) their constituents quit whining about campaign promises and health care so they can concentrate to get the new version written.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:06 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well holy shit...

Fox News Poll: Alabama Senate race all tied up

Republican Roy Moore, the anti-Republican establishment candidate, is tied at 42 percent apiece with Democrat Doug Jones in the U.S. Senate race in deep-red Alabama. A Fox News Poll also finds that among just the 53 percent of Alabama registered voters who are extremely or very interested in the race, Jones has a one-point edge over Moore (46-45 percent)...

The competitiveness of the race is striking. Donald Trump won Alabama by 28 points in 2016, yet the Steve Bannon-backed Moore defeated the president’s favored candidate, incumbent Luther Strange, in the GOP primary.

“This race exemplifies the difficulty the Republican Party has now,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson. “There is an element of the party that has had it with the establishment, had it with politics as usual, had it with political correctness. The fissure within the party means divisive primaries, controversial candidates, and hard choices for GOP voters once the general election rolls around.”

Jones is helped by greater party loyalty, and hesitancy among Moore’s own backers. The poll, released Tuesday, shows 42 percent of Moore’s supporters have some reservations about their candidate. For Jones, that number is 28 percent. Plus, 21 percent of those in the Jones camp say they’re voting against Moore as opposed to for Jones. That’s three times the number of Moore supporters who say their vote is based on dislike of Jones (7 percent).

posted by chris24 at 3:07 PM on October 17, 2017 [66 favorites]

Oh god, someone forgot to take the keyboard away from Lessig. I do not understand how he can be so blind to reality.

I'm socially and professionally connected to a whole bunch of the early-web glitterati, i.e. his primary corps of supporters and enthusiasts, so I get to hear more about Larry Lessig's putative genius than anyone should rightly have to tolerate.

Someone here (and I've forgotten whom, otherwise I would surely give credit where so very due) described him as understanding everything about the way the world should work, and not a damn thing about the way it actually does work. I myself prefer to think of him as suffering from that rare and peculiar strain of Dunning-Kruger syndrome that only afflicts the very bright.

Either way, he is contributing precisely nothing useful to the national debate, wasting everyone's time, and more or less running a kamikaze mission on any reputation he had left. I don't doubt for a second his good intentions, but someone who cares about him should perform an intervention.
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:17 PM on October 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Yea, sorry, the 40k thing was a joke, anyone interested can find the discussion buried in the dregs of the last thread and I’m happy if it dies there. I shouldn’t have brought it back to life, it wasn’t that good a joke.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:18 PM on October 17, 2017

I swear to God, I'm tempted to haul myself down to Alabama to knock doors. I would probably do it if I didn't think I'd do more harm than good. I'm definitely going to donate some money. I realize it's a total longshot, but the idea of Doug Jones beating Roy Moore makes my heart sing.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:21 PM on October 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

Anyone know how to contact a postcard campaign for Jones?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:22 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

“This race exemplifies the difficulty the Republican Party has now,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson. “There is an element of the party that has had it with the establishment, had it with politics as usual, had it with political correctness. The fissure within the party means divisive primaries, controversial candidates, and hard choices for GOP voters once the general election rolls around.”

This pretty much describes what happened to the California GOP*; a couple of lurches to the right and it's been Democratic Super Majorities ever since.


--------------------------
*Still a handful of GOP US House Reps where they no longer belong, though.
posted by notyou at 3:34 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh god, someone forgot to take the keyboard away from Lessig.

I find it easier to understand what Lessig does if I imagine him as the fictionalized Lessig played by Christopher Lloyd on The West Wing. Then I can just blend in a tiny bit of Doc Brown from Back to the Future or Jim Ignatowski from Taxi and it explains everything.
posted by mmoncur at 3:40 PM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

Yea, sorry, the 40k thing was a joke,...



*sigh*
/throws petitions in the recycle bin
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:40 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

BTW, Ted Lieu has a little visual aid for tRump.
posted by NorthernLite at 3:42 PM on October 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Donate to Doug Jones here or volunteer here.

Haven't found any postcard campaign yet, but I am on the lookout.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:48 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

Spicer interviewed by Mueller's team

One thing I know about Spicey: he is cool under pressure.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:57 PM on October 17, 2017 [49 favorites]

Paul Walkman, WaPo: Trump’s lie about Obama and fallen soldiers shows how he makes America dumber

Now here’s why this matters. Yes, many news outlets pointed out that Trump wasn’t telling the truth. But there are probably three interns at Fox News who are now scouring old news reports to find some family member of a fallen soldier who didn’t get a call from Obama. If they find it, that person’s story will then become the subject of a segment on Sean Hannity’s show, and it will then get retold on a hundred talk radio programs and conservative websites as proof that Obama was a monster and the media are all lying about this. (Trump’s insistence that there was “fake news” at work is another way of telling his supporters not to believe whatever they hear about this subject that comes from sources not explicitly supporting him.) And I promise you that if you took a poll two weeks from now, you’d find that 40 percent of the public (or more) believes that Obama never called the family of any fallen soldier, and only Trump has the sensitivity to do so.

And that’s how Trump takes his own particular combination of ignorance, bluster and malice, and sets it off like a nuclear bomb of misinformation. The fallout spreads throughout the country, and no volume of corrections and fact checks can stop it. It wasn’t even part of a thought-out strategy, just a loathsome impulse that found its way out of the president’s mouth to spread far and wide.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:59 PM on October 17, 2017 [111 favorites]

I signed up to help Doug Jones just now, then sent a separate email to ask about a postcard campaign. They got back to me ~immediately~ stating they will be rolling out ways for out-of-staters to help ASAP.
posted by thebrokedown at 4:16 PM on October 17, 2017 [49 favorites]

So there's an interesting (i.e. crazy, but in an intriguing way) theory of government and the private sector's role in the justification for the stopping CSRs. From the last thread

As for why Trump cut off CSR payments, which reduce or eliminate co-pays for those with lower incomes:

THE PRESIDENT: That money is going to insurance companies to lift up their stock price, and that's not what I'm about.

So... tax revenues shouldn't go to the bottom line of for-profit companies. Can we extend this to Equifax for IRS and Lockheed Marin, Boeing, Raytheon, etc. for the Pentagon and nationalize all companies that provide goods and services to the US Govt.? Sounds good, sounds good...

Well, no because without a profit motive to drive costs down, non-profit non-governmental actors and the govt. are inefficient, according to the Republican/economic-conservative platform that Trump has endorsed.

Huh, so we want a profit motive to incentivize efficiency, but we don't want companies to line their pockets with taxpayer funds? How's that work? Oh, there we go: zachlipton continued

THE PRESIDENT: Take a look at who those insurance companies support, and I guarantee you one thing: It's not Donald Trump.

Thus reinforcing his view of government as a tool to punish those who do not support him.

It's OK to profit from tax revenues, but only if some of that is shared as campaign contributions. Did Trump's casinos fail because he had giant neon signs at every table and slot stating the house advantage and "you will lose, I will win!"?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 4:17 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

I signed up to help Doug Jones just now, then sent a separate email to ask about a postcard campaign. They got back to me ~immediately~ stating they will be rolling out ways for out-of-staters to help ASAP.

Aw, I signed up weeks ago and got zip other than fundraising emails. I'm in Alabama, Doug! LET ME CANVASS FOR YOU.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:29 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Sarah Kendzior in Fast Company, How Data Can Save Us From The Trumpocalypse:

Congressional underfunding is delaying the economic census, an important tool for both small and large companies. But there’s no sign that Trump, the self-proclaimed great champion of business, is concerned. From my perspective, why should he be? Poor public data has historically helped dictators dodge accountability and shape policies around invented facts. It is not surprising that the general 2020 population census is under threat as well.

. . . There are ways out–ways that may avert World War III and lessen the suffering of millions of Americans coping with inadequate healthcare, natural disasters, or assaults on their civil rights. But the first step to even keeping those options on the table is preserving our ability to talk about them, and making those conversations as transparent as possible.

. . . There is a difference between expecting autocracy and accepting it. The former will help protect you, the latter is a preemptive surrender of freedom for which we can and must still fight.

America is in decline, and in order to reverse that decline, it must be documented and discussed. One cannot solve a crisis without confronting it–but one cannot confront a crisis if proof of its existence is censored or warnings of its severity are waved away. That is what the Trump administration wants, and it is in the interest of all Americans to make sure they do not get it.

posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 4:55 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Florida's Governor Declares State Of Emergency Ahead Of Richard Spencer Speech

One nazi motherfucker gets punched ONE TIME and they will mobilize the National Fucking Guard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Meanwhile the President is demanding that Black NFL players get fired for silently protesting.
posted by Cookiebastard at 4:59 PM on October 17, 2017 [44 favorites]

Gizmodo: Justice Department Drops Request for Names of People Who 'Liked' Anti-Trump Facebook Page
posted by Chrysostom at 5:01 PM on October 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

> We need to buy Larry a Metafilter account, he'd do less harm to his reputation here.

PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN arguing with liberal lawyers is my favorite thing.

I mean sometimes I win sometimes I lose, but if the lawyer is smart it's generally fun and weird for everyone. Their training doesn't allow them to admit "fuck a law" as a position, because it's an invalid position in their context, so they're often blindsided by the existence of rigorous arguments that treat written law as a small and relatively unimportant part of politics.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:02 PM on October 17, 2017 [18 favorites]

ASCII Costanza head: "So... tax revenues shouldn't go to the bottom line of for-profit companies. Can we extend this to Equifax for IRS and Lockheed Marin, Boeing, Raytheon, etc. for the Pentagon and nationalize all companies that provide goods and services to the US Govt.? "

Not sure I'm going to sign up for this, actually. EVERY single good or service provided to the US gov has to be in-house? Even the cleaning people and the pencils and paper clips?
posted by Chrysostom at 5:03 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Here’s the Memo the Kremlin-Linked Lawyer Took to the Meeting With Donald Trump Jr., no dirt on Clinton, a passing mention of adoptions, and a lot on Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act.
posted by peeedro at 5:04 PM on October 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

(note: I'm working here from the assumption that lawyers who are genuinely familiar with critical legal studies rapidly find themselves moving to a left-rather-that-liberal approach to the law, which may be unfair)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:04 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

>EVERY single good or service provided to the US gov has to be in-house? Even the cleaning people and the pencils and paper clips?

nationalize_all_the_things.gif
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:05 PM on October 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

I knew YOUR position on the issue in advance.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:06 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Even the cleaning people

The cleaning people should be federal employees with decent wages, benefits, and pension. Ditto the cafeteria people. They're often the worst abused when it comes to people barking about "efficiency" and need to have their jobs brought back under the auspices of the government rather than farmed out to minimum wage workers via a vulture capitalist.
posted by Talez at 5:06 PM on October 17, 2017 [88 favorites]

I say make the elected officials clean their own office buildings, like Japanese schoolchildren. Teach 'em some responsibility.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:08 PM on October 17, 2017 [46 favorites]

> I knew YOUR position on the issue in advance.

yes but you didn't know what gif i'd use
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:08 PM on October 17, 2017 [31 favorites]

I say make the elected officials clean their own office buildings, like Japanese schoolchildren. Teach 'em some responsibility.

I would also be more than happy for this to be applied to Stephen "we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us" Miller.
posted by Talez at 5:10 PM on October 17, 2017 [29 favorites]

Here’s the Memo the Kremlin-Linked Lawyer Took to the Meeting With Donald Trump Jr., no dirt on Clinton, a passing mention of adoptions, and a lot on Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act.

Some people are citing this as being exculpatory, but I'm not seeing it. A Kremlin operative was smart enough to show up with a decent cover story, even when meeting with a bunch of ham-fisted morons who were spilling the beans on email that very same day. No shit; if you can't manage basic opsec when running with former KGB operatives, your career isn't going to last long, to say nothing of your life.
posted by 0xFCAF at 5:17 PM on October 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

I just used up all of my daughter’s blue markers cathartically writing Postcards 4 VA so I will need the Doug Jones campaign to get on it ASAP.

Who needs adult coloring books when you can beg your fellow citizens to vote instead?

PS SIGN UP THERE IS STILL TIME
posted by lydhre at 5:19 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

The Onion Sues Trump Administration for Stealing All Their Ideas (not the Onion---technically).
posted by bonehead at 5:37 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

BREAKING: Internal White House documents allege manufacturing decline increases abortions, infertility, and spousal abuse (Damian Paletta, WaPo)

White House officials working on trade policy were alarmed last month when a top adviser to President Trump circulated a two-page document that alleged a weakened manufacturing sector leads to an increase in abortion, spousal abuse, divorce and infertility, two people familiar with the matter said.

The fact-sheets, which were obtained by The Washington Post, were prepared and distributed by Peter Navarro, director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. They were presented without any data or information to back up the assertions, and reveal some of the materials the Trump administration reviewed as it was crafting its trade policy.

posted by Room 641-A at 5:39 PM on October 17, 2017 [42 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** VA gov:

Lots of polls today:

* Monmouth: Gillespie 48/47
* Roanoke: Northam 50/44
* CNU: Northam 48/44

Inclusive of these, polling average is Northam +3.5. This is in line with what people are saying both campaigns show in internal polling.

** AL Senate special: Fox poll has race tied at 42-42. Digging further, Jones leads 46-45 among those very or extremely interested in the race. Worth reading the article for all the nitty gritty numbers.

Obviously, just one poll, although Fox is rated A by 538. The polling average is Moore +4.4.

** 2018 House: CNN poll has the generic ballot at 51-37 (+14). 538 average is at 48.6/38.2 (+10.4). Interestingly, the CNN poll had Trump approval unchanged since Sept, but Dems up 5 points in that stretch.

** NJ gov: Two new polls show Dem Murphy continuing to hold commanding lead. Farleigh Dickinson has Murphy up 47/32, Fox has him up 47/33.

====
** Election result in a little while for Massachusetts Senate Bristol & Norfolk, currently a D held seat, but a fairly close district.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:41 PM on October 17, 2017 [19 favorites]

Once upon a time, a man became the first African-American President, and a white businessman decided to build a political brand by accusing the President of being part of a global conspiracy to hide his true birthplace in Africa. But the President wasn’t scared; he mocked the white businessman to his face at the Correspondents’ Dinner. This made the white businessman very angry. The white businessman decided to work very hard to destroy the President’s legacy. Everyone was surprised when the white businessman became the new President, because he was not good at it! But there was one thing he was very good at: destroying things. He was good at destroying the things the first African-American President had made, even if it caused Americans to lose access to affordable healthcare and therefore to go bankrupt or to avoid preventative care and suffer and die early. The End! 😊
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:42 PM on October 17, 2017 [69 favorites]

Internal White House documents allege manufacturing decline increases abortions, infertility, and spousal abuse

So, what fraction of abortions can we ascribe to the Trump Organization manufacturing neckties in China? I’m gonna say “all of them”. No data to back that up, but it’s common sense.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:46 PM on October 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

Business Insider: Mueller has interviewed the cybersecurity expert who described being 'recruited to collude with the Russians'. Mueller interviewed Matt Tait (@pwnallthethings), the former GCHQ staffer who was approached by GOP operative Peter Smith, with ties to Flynn, to try to obtain hacked Clinton emails.

Mic: Exclusive: Army bans green card holders from enlisting, a move that may break federal law:

Army recruiters have been told to stop enlisting green card holders into the Army effective immediately, according to an email sent to military recruiters and obtained by Mic, a move that experts say breaks federal law.

“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY DO NOT ‘SHIP’ OR ‘ENLIST’ ANY FOREIGN NATIONAL’S (ALL I-551 CARD HOLDERS) UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE,” reads an email sent to Army recruiters on Monday by Gregory C. Williamson, chief of the Accessions Suitability Office Guard Strength Division.

The Atlantic has a review of Ivana's book, if that's your kind of thing. The opening anecdote:

There’s a story Ivana Trump tells in Raising Trump, her new memoir of parenting, work, and marriage. It was New Year’s Eve, 1977; she and Donald Trump were together in the hospital room after their first child had been born, discussing the matter of what name to give their new infant. Ivana suggested that the son should be named after the father: Donald Trump Jr. Donald, however, balked at this.

“What if he’s a loser?” he said.

Politico: Judge: DACA legal advice must be made public. They've been ordered to make public internal documents about the decision to end DACA. Could lead to some interesting reading. Thanks Judge Alsup!
posted by zachlipton at 5:49 PM on October 17, 2017 [50 favorites]

Oh god, someone forgot to take the keyboard away from Lessig. I do not understand how he can be so blind to reality.

Reality includes this thing called the Overton Window.

Lessig is trying to push it.

Someone has to try that.
posted by ocschwar at 5:59 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

although i risk seeming like a self-congratulatory self-linker, I am truly disgusted at how predictive my slight parable was just over 6 months ago.
the steves may change, but the hooded vulture aspect remains the same.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 6:06 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

ELECTION RESULT

Dem HOLD in Massachusetts Senate Bristol & Norfolk, 47-43 (there was a left-leaning independent).

Of note - the victor was the state director for MA and CT for the Bernie campaign.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:06 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

Jesus H. Christ.

Trump to widow of Sgt. La David Johnson: 'He knew what he signed up for'

U.S. President Donald Trump told U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson's widow Tuesday that "he knew what he signed up for ... but when it happens it hurts anyway" when he died serving in northwestern Africa, according to Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens.

"Yes, he said it," Wilson said. "It's so insensitive. He should have not have said that. He shouldn't have said it."

The president called about 4:45 p.m. and spoke to Johnson's pregnant widow, Myeshia Johnson, for about five minutes. She is a mother to Johnson's surviving 2-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. The conversation happened before Johnson's remains arrived in a commercial Delta Airlines flight at Miami International Airport.

Wilson witnessed as the widow, who is expecting their third baby in January, leaned over the U.S. flag that was draping his casket. Her pregnant belly was shaking against the casket as she sobbed uncontrollably. Their daughter stood next to her stoically. Their toddler waited in the arms of a relative.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:18 PM on October 17, 2017 [79 favorites]

> Reality includes this thing called the Overton Window.

Lessig is trying to push it.

He's pushing it in a direction on the complex plane, in a time when the reality of power relations is asserting itself with a vengeance. His arguments make sense in a world of nice people who want the best for everyone. They are useless under 2017's version of capitalism.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:18 PM on October 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

Politico: Trump issues warning to McCain: 'At some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty'

McCain's response, "I have faced tougher adversaries."

Exceptional shade.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:28 PM on October 17, 2017 [22 favorites]

and a lot on Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act...
---
Some people are citing this as being exculpatory, but I'm not seeing it

Yep. Magnitsky Act is sanctions. The Republican candidate's son, son-in-law and campaign manager went to a meeting where the best case scenario is they were there to make a deal with a hostile foreign power on sanctions. Shows just how far we've gone down the rabbit hole that what would've been considered completely damning and unthinkable months ago they now think clears them.
posted by chris24 at 6:29 PM on October 17, 2017 [57 favorites]

Artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald Chosen to Paint Official Obama Portraits for the Smithsonian

Love it. Love love love it.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:47 PM on October 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

Obama's not nearly a flashy enough dude to ask for an official portrait in the style of Wiley's Officer of the Hussars, but a fella can dream.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 6:51 PM on October 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

The longer Mueller's investigation goes, the more I'm getting that Election-eve itch of worry.

What if - what if - after a "thorough, complete, unbiased" investigation, they indict Manafort (who, sure, was Putin's handpicked campaign manager, but can be disowned and flushed down the memory hole) - and that's all?

Okay, fine, they also criticize Flynn and rap his knuckles.

Maybe they throw in some "expressions of concern" about Jared's charming naivete for taking a meeting with KGB agents to sweeten the pot.

What does that do, though? A normal administration would collapse from shame, but this is not (as you know, Bob) a normal administration. What if they just wave their hands and blame it on fake news and say that the few bad apples have been taken care of? Why, Fox news might even call it the most transparent and accountable administration in history! In a couple of years, our incompetent racist despot wannabe pardons Manafort annd Flynn and they enter the Wingnut Welfare talkshow circuit, and that's all she said?

Maybe it's just a late night after a frustrating day, but I'm getting a really bad feeling here.
posted by RedOrGreen at 6:51 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

U.S. President Donald Trump told U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson's widow Tuesday that "he knew what he signed up for ... but when it happens it hurts anyway" when he died serving in northwestern Africa, according to Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens.

Well, now we know why his staff didn't encourage or facilitate him to talk to Gold Star families...
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:54 PM on October 17, 2017 [53 favorites]

McCain backing Alexander-Murray CSR stabilization bill. Collins also supports.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:56 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

You guys, I seriously don't know how we come back from this anymore. I know I have a Cassandra complex, but I feel as though this simulation has had the speed ramped up, and we're hurtling towards some sort of breakpoint, and I just don't know what to do.

How do we recover from this, or is this just the end of days? I mean, who would ever trust America after this presidency? We've become a rogue state with more military than everyone else combined. The kleptocrats are waving their ill gotten gains in our faces as they loot, and seemingly, the majority of congress is ok with that, as long as they can give more loot to other kleptocrats.

We are in this accordion fold of time, where events seem too many too fast while at the same time, being long drawn out wheezes of despair. And the bellows just keep pumping, more speed, more time, more crisis, more outrage, it's building and building, and the crescendo will be the wails of millions.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:57 PM on October 17, 2017 [50 favorites]

How do we recover from this, or is this just the end of days? I mean, who would ever trust America after this presidency?

In the short run? Nobody, and they are right not to.

In the medium run? Not to put too fine a point on it but Germany and Japan are two of the most trusted and respected nations in the world today and, uh, there were some incidents 75 or 80 years ago...
posted by Justinian at 7:04 PM on October 17, 2017 [90 favorites]

Oh god, someone forgot to take the keyboard away from Lessig. I do not understand how he can be so blind to reality.

Reality includes this thing called the Overton Window.

Lessig is trying to push it.

Someone has to try that.

He's pushing on the Overton Window into Narnia, though, and using a squeaky rubber clown nose to do it. You wanna give him a his heart is in the right place medal, I won't veto it. You want to say that "what if the kids do a car wash" deserves actual time on the agenda when we're discussing ways to avoid bankruptcy, I'm gonna say it's not a good use of our time.
posted by phearlez at 7:11 PM on October 17, 2017 [13 favorites]

What if - what if - after a "thorough, complete, unbiased" investigation, they indict Manafort (who, sure, was Putin's handpicked campaign manager, but can be disowned and flushed down the memory hole) - and that's all?

Okay, fine, they also criticize Flynn and rap his knuckles.

Maybe they throw in some "expressions of concern" about Jared's charming naivete for taking a meeting with KGB agents to sweeten the pot.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that the things you mention were revealed without much professional investigation, and some of it self-revealed by clownish ineptitude of the perps. I'm assuming there are some involved who were more circumspect and that Mueller will find all of this and put it together in a nice package tied up with a bow. If not, we are in deep shit.
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:12 PM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

Obama's not nearly a flashy enough dude to ask for an official portrait in the style of Wiley's Officer of the Hussars, but a fella can dream.

Really has to be seen in person to appreciate its full glory.
posted by Preserver at 7:14 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

My prediction is that Mueller uncovers criminality on the part of some Trump associates (Manafort and Flynn), a bunch of documentary shenanigans and lies like Kushner and his ever-changing disclosure forms, and a ton of shady and unethical but not necessarily illegal Russia bullshit from Trump and his family... plus obstruction of justice. But that most Republicans will argue that obstruction isn't impeachable in the absence of proven underlying criminality. No, I don't need the hypocrisy and inherent contradiction there pointed out.
posted by Justinian at 7:17 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

My wildcard would be old financial crime in which I have no doubt Trump and his family have engaged but I don't know how far back and how in depth Mueller will look at that.
posted by Justinian at 7:18 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

the majority of congress is ok with that, as long as they can give more loot to other kleptocrats.

the majority of congress is deeply, deeply afraid of their base on primary day.

as well they should be since ~40% of this country has been marinating in toxic sludge for decades now.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:20 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

chortly: " Pointing this out does not minimize the real harm being done right now, but if the president even had the powers normally given to a PM with majority control, the scope of the destruction would already be much, much wider, probably including much of social security, medicaid, most of the other social services the federal government provides; broad restrictions on immigrants, minorities and women; and gigantic tax cuts crippling the US for years to come. "

However Trump would never have made into the PM position of any functioning parlimentry democracy.

Chrysostom: "Not sure I'm going to sign up for this, actually. EVERY single good or service provided to the US gov has to be in-house? Even the cleaning people and the pencils and paper clips?"

Commodity supplies shouldn't be in house but sure the Janitors. Having cleaning crews as government employees with presumably decently compensated union jobs would be an excellent drag on race to the bottom employment standards that are plaguing the US. Contracting out is one of the key methods of union busting.
posted by Mitheral at 7:25 PM on October 17, 2017 [24 favorites]

However Trump would never have made into the PM position of any functioning parlimentry democracy.

Lolwut? You do realize how close Bojo is to becoming British PM right now?
posted by Talez at 7:30 PM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

We Are Living in ‘Mean Girls’ And Donald Trump keeps trying to make “fetch” happen

You Do Not Have to Listen to Anthony Scaramucci Anymore
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:33 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump's not the problem. He's doing what he does, what we all (here) knew he would.

The corporate news, even more so than the GOP, are the most culpable in their deriliction of duty.
posted by petebest at 7:34 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

However Trump would never have made into the PM position of any functioning parlimentry democracy.

Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep but;

Trump would never have made into the presidency of any functioning representative democracy.

Trump would never have made into the presidency of any functioning corporation that wasn't started by his parents and already had his name on the door.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:34 PM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Boris Johnson is a career politician; not a reality TV actor who had never been elected to anything.
posted by Mitheral at 7:34 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Is he just going to give an insane, contradiction-laden press conference every weekday morning now? It’s easy to forget how many miles of crazy has flooded over already.


Probably. My guess is that the Mueller Investigation is heating and he's trying to distract. He's unhinged. I bet we see a public freakout by the end of the week.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:35 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

public freakout by the end of the week.
posted by fluttering hellfire

eponymominous?
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:39 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Boris Johnson is a career politician; not a reality TV actor who had never been elected to anything.

He failed out of career journalism into being a politician by being an utterly immoral and incompetent pillock.
posted by Talez at 7:40 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

> You guys, I seriously don't know how we come back from this anymore. I know I have a Cassandra complex, but I feel as though this simulation has had the speed ramped up, and we're hurtling towards some sort of breakpoint, and I just don't know what to do.

One of the themes that Trotsky hits on repeatedly in History of the Russian Revolution is that time works differently during a revolution; months worth of events can come in a day, actions that seemed unthinkable at the start of a week can be absolutely necessary at the end of it.

Unfortunately the revolution we're living through is a hard-right revolution.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:45 PM on October 17, 2017 [50 favorites]

Boris Johnson is a career politician; not a reality TV actor who had never been elected to anything.

Absolutely, but it seems a little naive suggest in 2017 that something as disastrous as a Trump couldn't happen after Brexit and an Actual Trump becoming a world leader.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:50 PM on October 17, 2017

Mod note: Guys, no apocalypse fanfic, thanks.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:52 PM on October 17, 2017 [26 favorites]

Today: U.S. President Donald Trump told U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson's widow Tuesday that "he knew what he signed up for ... but when it happens it hurts anyway" when he died serving in northwestern Africa, according to Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens.

Me on the blue yesterday: Imagine losing someone you loved, and then as you're dealing with that grief imagine the extra dose of cruelty of having to deal with this fucking ghoul.

Jesus fucking Christ I feel like shit about being right on this.


The longer Mueller's investigation goes, the more I'm getting that Election-eve itch of worry.

I was a teen in Los Angeles in the early '90s. Most of the media spent an entire year telling us the cops who beat Rodney King would surely be found guilty, because look at the evidence. Look at the tape. It was all on tape.

Every time I hear about Mueller surely getting 45 and "please Mueller hurry it up," I think a lot about the feelings I had when I came home from school and turned on the news on April 29, 1992.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 7:58 PM on October 17, 2017 [90 favorites]

The hellban option. Sadly I think he'd notice when the media didn't go bananas.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:07 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Even if the Mueller investigation did find something, Republicans can just ignore it. Like the Supreme Court seat --- clearly they were supposed to act, they chose not to. Their voters loved it.

The only thing thats going to help is either enough Republican congressmen coming to their senses (lol) or 2018 election, maybe. I don't have any faith in either, though.
posted by thefoxgod at 8:10 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

@PhilipRucker:

Just got off phone with Rep. Frederica Wilson, who overheard Trump's call with widow. Said she wanted to curse POTUS out for making her cry.
Wilson was in limo w/ widow for POTUS call (on speaker), said Trump's “he knew what he was signing up for” made widow break down in tears.
Trump may not have known that a Democratic congresswoman was listening to his conversation with widow.
Wilson says it was clear to her Trump had no script. "He was talking off the cuff,” she recalled, “saying the same thing over and over."
Wilson says “I wanted to curse him out,” meaning Trump, for making widow cry, but Army sergeant holding phone wouldn’t let her talk to POTUS
Of course, this is one congresswoman’s witness account. The White House is neither confirming nor denying, saying such calls are “private."
You might ask why Rep. Wilson was in car with widow? She’s close to the family. Johnson, the soldier, went through her mentoring program.
Johnson’s family and Wilson are raising a scholarship fund for his three surviving kids (ages 6, 2, and unborn) bit.ly/2gMybub

@JohnJHarwood: telling widow that slain soldier "knew what he signed up for" is consistent w/Commander-in-Chief shielding himself from responsibility
posted by zachlipton at 8:19 PM on October 17, 2017 [98 favorites]

telling widow that slain soldier "knew what he signed up for" is consistent w/Commander-in-Chief shielding himself from responsibilityhumanity.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:25 PM on October 17, 2017 [16 favorites]

I can't ever put myself in the shoes of someone who lost a loved one to military service, but I don't think I could take a call from any president in that situation. It would just sit so wrong with me, the person who ultimately put them in that situation calling with condolences, wouldn't matter if it was Barack Obama or this awful monster we've got in office now. Like that would just feel like an inappropriate intrusion into something intensely personal. I totally get why someone would take that call and I would never judge anyone for it, but man, not for me. And I wonder how many of those calls get turned down, because I'm sure I wouldn't be unique in having that feeling.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:39 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

Remember that the Republicans KNOW that Trump's insensitive assholery is consistent with the attitude of a frighteningly large part of their core constituency (especially the part giving them money).
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:43 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

raising a scholarship fund for his three surviving kids (ages 6, 2, and unborn)

Unborn, so he was this callous to a soldier's pregnant widow. He's a sociopath. We need to start a fund to bribe him into resigning.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:43 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

We need to start a fund to bribe him into resigning.

I think this would actually work.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:48 PM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

The only difference between him and a serial killer is in choice of hobbies. If the swing set had hit his head as a child, and if he didn't have a disgust for blood, he'd probably be one.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:50 PM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

[Guys, no apocalypse fanfic, thanks.]

Um...

Donald Trump Could Lead US to World War III, Bob Corker Says (Time)
Why is Trump suddenly talking about World War III? (Washington Post)
Anne Frank Centre warns of 'alarming parallels' between Trump's America and Hitler's Germany (Independent)
Trump’s not Hitler, he’s Mussolini (Salon)
The Donald Trump-Kaiser Wilhelm Parallels Are Getting Scary (Foreign Policy)
Orwell’s "1984" and Trump’s America (New Yorker)
The Past Week Proves That Trump Is Destroying Our Democracy (NYT)
Will Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency? (Atlantic)
How Trump Will Destroy the Environment (Foreign Affairs)
Donald Trump could be about to trigger the apocalypse, elite Doomsday Clock scientists conclude (Independent)
A Donald Trump Presidency Looks a Lot Like Dystopia (Atlantic)
Has Donald Trump ruined the dystopian novel? (Guardian)
posted by chortly at 9:14 PM on October 17, 2017 [72 favorites]

[Chapter 345,346,324,769,764,235 of Imagine if a Democrat Had Done That]

If and when a Democrat ever takes power again, all Republicans everywhere have lost any claim to moral authority on any topic. The troops, the Constitution, Senatorial comity, budgetary offsets, corruption, Religious belief, basic human decency, all of it. Everything. We never have to take anything they say at face value again, ever. And we should demand the media not do so either. Lies are the new bipartisanship. Every Republican everywhere ceded the high ground for forever after going along with this catastrophe for tax cuts.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:22 PM on October 17, 2017 [27 favorites]

So how pathetic is it that I periodically feel compelled to calculate how many days remain before Inauguration Day 2021? (1190 as of 10/18)

Probably not as pathetic as sometimes just sitting and watching the Official Countdown Clock despondently for several minutes, willing it to move faster.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:22 PM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

So how pathetic is it that I periodically feel compelled to calculate how many days remain before Inauguration Day

There's an app for that. I have it under the same folder on my phone as "weather".
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:23 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

“He knew what he signed up for” is a line that would have ended her career (and maybe her life).

I dunno, but I think if that kind of transparency and inadvertent honesty was more common, people would likely change their views on war. The military has been a meat-bank for decades, and the more people know it's used as a grinder the less comfortable they might be about treating US foreign policy like a Dallas Cowboys game.
posted by rhizome at 9:26 PM on October 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Scott Pruitt's EPA Says Maybe More Radiation Exposure Wouldn't Be So Harmful

I feel like they are prepping us for a nuclear war.
posted by Gadgetenvy at 9:28 PM on October 17, 2017 [24 favorites]

"If and when a Democrat ever takes power again, all Republicans everywhere have lost any claim to moral authority on any topic. The troops, the Constitution, Senatorial comity, budgetary offsets, corruption, Religious belief, basic human decency, all of it. Everything. We never have to take anything they say at face value again, ever. "

Yep, I find it really a relief not to have to engage seriously with Republican claims about ethics or Constitutionality or whatever anymore; there were always contradictions and hypocrisy but they were always like, "Oh, well, it's just that one guy" or "Well *I* read the Constitution this way ..." But now when they claim that getting a blow job in the Oval Office is an impeachable offense we can just laugh. Or when they say that we need to respect federalism and let states legislate on topic X, we can ignore them. Claims to principles may have once been true for some Republicans, but there are no principled Republicans left in the national party. Not a single one.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:31 PM on October 17, 2017 [47 favorites]

I don’t have a countdown timer because I’m expecting the 2020 election to make 2016 look like a relaxed discussion among friends
posted by theodolite at 9:31 PM on October 17, 2017 [43 favorites]

@BFriedmanDC:

1. Let's talk for a minute about "he knew what he signed up for."
2. There's often a misconception among non-veterans that service members sign up with the expectation that they may die.
3. I did two tours in combat as an infantry officer and I never met a soldier who thought dying was a reasonable result of their service.
4. Take the numbers: Since 9/11, roughly 1 out of every 5,000 troops to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan died there.
5. I'll say that again: 1. Out of every 5,000. Dying in combat is neither common nor expected.
6. But when things *do* get dicey, troops expect leaders (at every level) to do everything in their power to keep death from happening.
7. Take roadside bombs. When they began killing U.S. troops, President Bush never said, "they knew what they signed up for."
8. Instead, DoD designed MRAPs. It was a concerted effort to keep more people from getting killed unnecessarily.
9. And that's what keeps troops going. The knowledge that your life is valuable. That it's not to be wasted. That air support is inbound.
10. Today we say, "I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy."
11. It's long been a thing in the U.S. military. Here's how Robert Heinlein characterized it in his 1959 military classic Starship Troopers: quote in tweet.
12. After a KIA, no one in the military ever, EVER, says "he knew what he signed up for." Instead they reflect.
13. "What could we have done differently? How could we have prevented this from happening?" No one shrugs death off as an inevitability.
14. So when we have a Commander in Chief respond to a combat death with, "he knew what he signed up for," it tells us a few things.
15. First, it tells us the President has no idea how the military works or what his role and responsibilities are.
16. More importantly, it sends this message to troops: If you're looking for support from the White House, you know what you signed up for.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:46 PM on October 17, 2017 [166 favorites]

I feel like they are prepping us for a nuclear war.

Not a big one

just one that raises the global background radiation measurably
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:50 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

Not a single one.

The modern GOP has gotten out of any blame for Iraq and Afghanistan -- many of the politicians from that time are gone, and a few who remain got a new coat of paint as isolationist small-government populists. The party had to completely change course and rebrand itself after making a terrible mistake. What will they have to change into this time around?
posted by miyabo at 9:57 PM on October 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

After a KIA, no one in the military ever, EVER, says "he knew what he signed up for." Instead they reflect.

And sometimes that reflection is only as deep as, "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
posted by peeedro at 10:01 PM on October 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

What if - what if - after a "thorough, complete, unbiased" investigation, they indict Manafort (who, sure, was Putin's handpicked campaign manager, but can be disowned and flushed down the memory hole) - and that's all?

You have to remember these people are morons.
It is through regulatory capture and campaign contributions that they avoid punishment it's not lack of evidence or criminal genius.

I have no doubt Mueller will find evidence of crime all the way up to Trump and maybe even a large swathe of the GOP.

Mueller will present his evidence and then the fight starts.

My fever dream conspiracy theory is not that Trump will be shielded from punishment by congress but that they will be aided by Putin, the EU and even the Dems in order to avoid the fallout encompassing their interests. Too big to fail indeed.
posted by fullerine at 11:12 PM on October 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

No doubt? I hope that's hyperbole or you're setting yourself up for major disappointment, I think.
posted by Justinian at 11:25 PM on October 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

If I could have one perfect event for Christmas 2017, and the obvious stuff (Trump resigns, Trump is impeached, Trump spontaneously combusts out of sheer undiluted bloody-mindedness) is off the table, I would go with:
Trump approaches a grieving widow at a ceremony. Maybe he puts his arm around her, maybe he just leans in with his fetid Tic-Tac breath and gently reminds her that her husband knew what he was getting into. She turns, looks blankly at Trump, and then smacks him right in the goddamn mouth. Hard as she can.

Maybe she follows it with another slap, maybe she turns away, maybe she tackles the motherfucker to the ground and starts punching him until his Secret Service detail pulls her off him. I don't know. All I really need to see happen is the one slap, but man I need it so bad it hurts. Just for one goddamn second, I want that rancid piece of shit to be reminded that stupid, stupid actions have actual real-world consequences for almost everybody in the universe.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 11:32 PM on October 17, 2017 [41 favorites]

Here's the thing. Goal: Dump Trump.

Don Jr., Ivanka, and Kushner, when Mueller dug in, are ALL REALLY GUILTY OF ACTUAL CRIMES.

So, the calculus is: "Trump doesn't give a shit about Jr. and Kushner. Would he resign if Ivanka was going to federal prison for a long time if he doesn't?"

Thing is Trump is a piece of shit, so he MIGHT throw #1 Daughter under the bus. Rational behavior isn't on the menu here, so...

But I do think we'll hear, once the rubber hits the road, "I've done everything I set out to do, so I'm going out a #Winner and resigning...."
posted by mikelieman at 11:43 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

If I could have one perfect even...

You know he'd punch her back, right?
posted by From Bklyn at 12:32 AM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

So, the calculus is: "Trump doesn't give a shit about Jr. and Kushner. Would he resign if Ivanka was going to federal prison for a long time if he doesn't?"

He'd pardon her for anything federal. I'm so confident that he'll pardon everyone that I assume everything that isn't also a breach of NYS law means nothing.
posted by jaduncan at 12:38 AM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Guys, no apocalypse fanfic, thanks.

All I'm going to say is that this was a lot funnier when I first made it, (seemingly) fifteen years ago now.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:27 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure if this is literally apocalypse fanfic and primary relitigation all rolled into one, but William Gibson apparently has a new book coming out in January. From The Guardian, Agency, by the famously prescient SF author, imagines an alternative US where voters have elected their first female president:

Due out in January 2018, the novel will travel between two periods: one in present-day San Francisco, where Clinton’s White House ambitions are realised; and the other in a post-apocalyptic London, 200 years into the future after 80% of the world population has been killed.

In the present-day strand of Gibson’s story, a shadowy military organisation develops and tests artificial intelligence on a young woman named Verity. The parts set in the distant future show that time travel has been discovered and used to create a “stub”, a way of interfering to create an alternative future, starting in 2017.

posted by tapir-whorf at 2:05 AM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

*points to Reagan's twirling zombie corpse in horror, hissing softly in fear*

Shhhh! Quit it you guys! You'll wake it up! And this time we won't have the Michael Jackson kaiju to stop it!
posted by loquacious at 3:18 AM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

He'd pardon her for anything federal. I'm so confident that he'll pardon everyone that I assume everything that isn't also a breach of NYS law means nothing.

I *know* he's not listening to his lawyers. Maybe this will get through to him. BTW, that parallel prosecution must be on Mueller/Schniederman's radar...
posted by mikelieman at 4:06 AM on October 18, 2017

My reaction to that Trump call to the widow:
Nostrils flaring, lips pulled from teeth, need to punch something
posted by angrycat at 4:06 AM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

My reaction to that Trump call to the widow:
Nostrils flaring, lips pulled from teeth, need to punch something
posted by angrycat at 4:06 AM on October 18 [+] [!]

do not want to make light of the emotion you feel (as I feel it too), but ... this is totally the reaction of an angry cat. eponysterical.
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 4:17 AM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Good.

@cmclymer
Update: Sen. Debbie Stabenow has been announced as the opening speaker for the Women's Convention. Bernie Sanders will appear on a panel.
posted by chris24 at 4:23 AM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Remember when establishment Republicans would excoriate "RINOs" like Trump/David Duke and just destroy aspirational heresiarchs like Bannon? Watching these establishment Republicans twist in the wind while Koch and Mercer assemble their armies is horrifying and satisfying all at the same time.
posted by xyzzy at 4:30 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

The party had to completely change course and rebrand itself

Mmmmm - cite? I kinda feel like the only concession they made was not to have Gee Dubz out on the road slappin' babies for them. Their message was, and still is, "hey victimized white men, let us punish everyone else and take your monies." Which they are then duly elected to do, and usually do.

Sure we bent a few spoons under DOUBLE-YEW, but that's why pencils have erasers!
posted by petebest at 4:39 AM on October 18, 2017

As it has turned out, James Comey lied and leaked and totally protected Hillary Clinton. He was the best thing that ever happened to her!

Reminder that Trump's official story for firing Comey is that he was too hard on Clinton and unfair regarding the emails.
posted by chris24 at 4:40 AM on October 18, 2017 [69 favorites]

They think that capitalization indicates emphasis in US English. Or they've been reading too much stuff in the original German, where all nouns are capitalized. Hard to say.
posted by xyzzy at 4:41 AM on October 18, 2017 [31 favorites]

Capital Letters are used for Important Things. Everybody knows that. It's Cargo Cult Orthography.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:42 AM on October 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!

No shit.
posted by petebest at 4:43 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

What proof could he have? Aside from the belief that he can say whatever he wants and Republicans will swallow it.
posted by maxwelton at 4:46 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

"tapes"
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:47 AM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

Who even works in this adult day care, because they're missing every shift.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:49 AM on October 18, 2017 [51 favorites]

Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!

SHSanders will say today that while they have proof, they won't release it to respect the privacy of the conversation with the widow.
posted by chris24 at 4:50 AM on October 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

Of course, since the widow herself also said that Trump said that, he is now calling the pregnant widow of a very recently deceased US serviceman a liar.

It would be hard to imagine doing something worse than attacking the Khans on the basis that Mrs Khan was too abused by Mr Khan to speak, but he has managed it.
posted by jaduncan at 4:51 AM on October 18, 2017 [81 favorites]

And going back yet-a-bloody-gain to anything to do with private email servers is... bold. Or moronic.
posted by Devonian at 4:55 AM on October 18, 2017

Mod note: NYC/Trump derail deleted.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:00 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

It has been _0_ days since the last Trump disaster.
posted by Melismata at 5:00 AM on October 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

I often find myself in a weird place while talking to my mom about this issue. She's extremely mistrustful of, like, everyone she's not related to (she used to work at a bank in the fraud department, so she's seen a lot of liars), but simultaneously has that Objectivist romantic view of human potential whereby if you just let people be people with no bummer laws and taxes and stuff, we'd all be perfectly rational, charitable, self-actualized beings. I'm the opposite. I think that human nature, to quote Xunzi, stinks. Overall we kind of suck and our brains are not wired to be particularly good at stuff like rational behavior, charity, or self-actualization.

recently I thought about that old argument that conservatism/libertarianism assumes the best of humanity while liberalism assumes the worst. i.e., "we don't need a bunch of restrictive laws for people to be good!" I finally realized that the argument falls through when you consider that it only takes a tiny percentage of greedy bastards and sociopaths to basically destroy society. Liberalism doesn't assume the worst of everyone. It assumes that a few will invariably try to seize power and glut themselves on the backs of the many if they aren't held back from doing so.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 5:09 AM on October 18, 2017 [36 favorites]

Can you imagine having the horrible job of trying to coach Trump on empathy?

Coach: "So, Mr. President, imagine a beloved pet has died, and you held its warm body in your arms as it breathed its last... feel the unconditional love and how you will miss it, and... go!"

Trump: Scrunches up face as if trying to solve a math equation.

C: "Ah, okay... then you just have to imagine someone near and dear to you has died, a close family member, your wife or one of your sons and you let that grief come out in your voice and words..."

T: Blank stare.

C: "No dice there, either? Oh, okay, I got it: imagine you yourself had died and-"

T: Turns white as a sheet where not covered in bronzer, eyes bulging out, mouth open in a silent scream, after a while emitting a high pitched noise that turns into an avalanche of words "...ohmyIcan'timaginewhatyoumustbegoingthrough!Howutterlyhorriblewordscan'tdescribeit!Whataloss,whataterrible,terribleloss!"
posted by PontifexPrimus at 5:19 AM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

"Imagine somebody said your hands were small."
posted by jaduncan at 5:22 AM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

The truck bombing in Somalia that killed 300 people may have been in revenge for a botched US raid two months earlier.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:31 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Lawyer leading Charlottesville's review of violent rally hits roadblocks while seeking access to state records , Graham Moomaw
posted by nangar at 5:31 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Y'all know the fallen soldier and grieving pregnant widow are black, right? There is not a Trump supporter in the country who would believe her word over the president's even if they heard the audio themselves. Not one.
posted by duffell at 5:32 AM on October 18, 2017 [87 favorites]

Well there's always Rootin' Tootin' Newton with the plan-spoken truth. (via politicalwire)

“I quit worrying about his tweets — and I think some of the stuff he does is outrageous — but he has a larger vision of creativity. He intuits how he can polarize.”

— Newt Gingrich, quoted by the Washington Post, saying he has “come to see the value” of President Trump’s use of Twitter.

a.k.a. "Our goal is to destroy and dominate this country, and Trump can do that sometimes."

What a true American hero. GOP! GOP! GOP!
posted by petebest at 5:33 AM on October 18, 2017 [23 favorites]

The Best Thing to do when What You're Reading has Unnecessary Emphasis indicated by Erratic Capitalization is to imagine all of it in the voice of Chris Farley.

This includes pretty much everything I will ever post here.
posted by delfin at 5:34 AM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

Second judge rules against latest travel ban, saying Trump’s own words show it was aimed at Muslims (Matt Zapotosky, WaPo)

A federal judge in Maryland early Wednesday issued a second halt on the latest version of President Trump’s travel ban, asserting that the president’s own comments on the campaign trail and on Twitter convinced him that the directive was akin to an unconstitutional Muslim ban.

U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang issued a somewhat less complete halt on the ban than his counterpart in Hawaii did a day earlier, blocking the administration from enforcing the directive only on those who lacked a “bona fide” relationship with a person or entity in the United States, such as family members or some type of professional or other engagement in the United States.

posted by Room 641-A at 5:34 AM on October 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

We're all bringing up how this - all of this - is license to ignore any moral high ground the Rs attempt to shore up ever again.

Thing is, they never ever NEVER had any moral high ground, ever. We know it and they know it, everybody knows it. However, the Rs and their base have mastered the art of performative morals. THEY KNOW IT'S A FABRICATED POSITION and they don't care. Benghazi? Nonsense. Dems hate soldiers? Nonsense. EPA kills jobs? Nonsense.

We, as the opposition, have been ignoring their attempts at claiming the moral high ground and it's useless because they absolutely do not care one whit about actual moral high ground, just what plays well. Just look at this administration. Look at the Rs scurrying about to try to redefine the words "collusion" and "scandal" and "profiteering". After Puerto Rico, they're even scrambling to redefine "disaster".

It's not a game we can win and it's not a game we can't play. I don't know how we get out of this one, I really don't, because they can just pretend that warping reality works and then seemingly fall into collective delusions about the world that no amount of truth can shake. Outsiders all see it as lies and performance, but in-group? They are rock solid in their convictions because it works for them.
posted by lydhre at 6:01 AM on October 18, 2017 [33 favorites]

Who else has developed a morning ritual of checking the presidential twitter feed and then staring blankly into space for several minutes

It’s sort of the opposite of meditation
posted by theodolite at 6:01 AM on October 18, 2017 [26 favorites]

Who else has developed a morning ritual of checking the presidential twitter feed and then staring blankly into space for several minutes

Much like looking directly at the sun, I find it best to put on a "viewed through Metafilter" lens.

I have the benefit of getting to work at 6am central time. So my morning ritual is to pull up the current potus thread. Generally I've got the previous nights conversation to catch up, but I know that Lord Dampnut has been tweakin on the twitters again if I start to see 10 or more new comments load before I can get to the bottom of the thread.

Today was a good example.
posted by Twain Device at 6:05 AM on October 18, 2017 [38 favorites]

Thread syncing up today’s adult day care tweets with Fox and Friends. Grandpa needs his stories.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:18 AM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

Everybody get your surprised faces ready: AP finds families of 2 soldiers who died overseas during Trump's presidency who never received a call or letter.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:24 AM on October 18, 2017 [52 favorites]

We don't believe you.
Because you are a liar.
Let us see your "proof."
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 6:25 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Second judge rules against latest travel ban, saying Trump’s own words show it was aimed at Muslims (Matt Zapotosky, WaPo)

I'm hopeful that some of these Muslim ban challenges create more good precedent for using the previous words of lawmakers to challenge anti-abortion and anti-birth control laws over separation of church and state issues. There is no shortage of words from these lawmakers to back that up.

Of course, Gorsuch court. But thinking long game, like the next time the Supreme Court gets pulled out of the dark ages, it seems like helpful precedent.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:42 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

One of the themes that Trotsky hits on repeatedly in History of the Russian Revolution is that time works differently during a revolution;

Oh God, now I'm agreeing with Trotsky? This really must be the darkest timeline.
posted by corb at 6:42 AM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Thread syncing up today’s adult day care tweets with Fox and Friends.

Usually the despot drives the propaganda, but we have the propagandists driving the despot. Has this ever happened before?

Whoever chooses the stories for Fox and Friends is one of the most powerful people in the world.
posted by diogenes at 6:48 AM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

Anne Gearan, WaPo: Trump disputes account of his call with soldier’s widow. But congresswoman who heard exchange says it was ‘horrible.’

Wilson told MSNBC on Wednesday that Johnson's widow, Myeshia, was shaken by the exchange.

“She was crying the whole time, and when she hung up the phone, she looked at me and said, ‘He didn’t even remember his name.’ That’s the hurting part.”

Wilson went on to say Trump “was almost like joking. He said, ‘Well, I guess you knew’ — something to the effect that ‘he knew what he was getting into when he signed up, but I guess it hurts anyway.’ You know, just matter-of-factly, that this is what happens, anyone who is signing up for military duty is signing up to die. That’s the way we interpreted it. It was horrible. It was insensitive. It was absolutely crazy, unnecessary. I was livid.”

“She was in tears. She was in tears. And she said, ‘He didn’t even remember his name.’”

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:51 AM on October 18, 2017 [92 favorites]

Babyhands McBonespurs has been, never mind simply disrespecting, but actively picking fights with military and their families since the campaign.

Right Wing Zealots, Trumpians, "Evangelicals," all these pious folk that love to wave their flag-wrapped Bible while they pray loudly in the street don't actually give a shit about God, religion, military, patriotism, any of that stuff, except for inasmuch as it might have some money in it for them.

Trump literally campaigned on "I Will Abuse Gold Star Families."

And McConnell or Ryan or whatever may come out and be all "Welp, I don't approve of what he said, but he is actually right and thank you sir may I have another."

I was a Field Organizer on the Barack Obama campaign in 2008. We knocked doors in military neighborhoods. I spoke with literally hundreds of families of soldiers who said "I respect Senator Obama but I'm going to be voting for McCain because he has proven his leadership and commitment through his service."

Those same precincts went super-heavy for Trump.
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:55 AM on October 18, 2017 [57 favorites]

Aside from not knowing his name, it's the idea that this man had been all I guess I'll die today shrug emoji when he's got a pregnant wife and two kids. This idea coming from the POTUS. This fucking guy. I'm ready to convert to Catholicism, just so I can believe in hell.
posted by angrycat at 6:56 AM on October 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

Trump literally campaigned on "I Will Abuse Gold Star Families."

Not the white ones though.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:09 AM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Those same precincts went super-heavy for Trump.

In my more bleak moments, I think about the fact that when Hillary Clinton first started organizing, there were few ways for women to gain power except through a man. I think about the compromises that she needed to make in order to be seen as an appropriate wife for such a man. And then I think about how when it was finally time for her to try to step into the sun, the millstone of her husband's mistakes kept dragging her down.

I think about that a lot actually.
posted by corb at 7:14 AM on October 18, 2017 [90 favorites]

Right Wing Zealots, Trumpians, "Evangelicals," all these pious folk that love to wave their flag-wrapped Bible while they pray loudly in the street don't actually give a shit about God, religion, military, patriotism, any of that stuff, except for inasmuch as it might have some money in it for them.

It's all about tribalism. Always has been. The Republican mantra is that while all men were created equal, only they count as card-carrying men. Everyone else is of a subservient caste. Rights, dignity and opinions are zero-sum; if you are allowed any, that's theft from theirs because only they are allowed to have those.

Our religion can ignore the courts and laws because it is privileged. We decide what is the only permissible way to respond to the flag and anthem. We will only pass legislation if we can do it with none of your votes or input. Your criticism of police behavior is offensive because police are better people than you and those they attack are literally animals. Disrespecting us requires a loud counterattack because our supremacy is above question. And we will dickwave at other nations because no one else can have one anywhere nearly as big as ours.

Trump ran on Make America White Again and it worked. His base being self-absorbed bullies should not surprise anyone.
posted by delfin at 7:23 AM on October 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

Anne Gearan, WaPo: Trump disputes account of his call with soldier’s widow. But congresswoman who heard exchange says it was ‘horrible.’

I'm not sure if this was added since Johnny Wallflower posted the link, but the article now includes confirmation from Sgt. Johnson's mother, who was in the car:

Johnson's mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that she was in the car during the call from the White House and that "President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband."

Jones-Johnson, speaking to The Post via Facebook Messenger, declined to elaborate.

But asked whether Wilson's account of the conversation between Trump and the family was accurate, she replied: "Yes."

posted by zombieflanders at 7:28 AM on October 18, 2017 [35 favorites]

More from Greg Sargent (also with the WaPo): Trump just said his comment to war widow was ‘fabricated.’ In an interview, the witness pushes back.

...Rep. Wilson said in our interview she is sticking by the story, and asserted that there were other witnesses in the car, including the driver and the aunt and uncle of the deceased soldier. “I was not the only one in the car,” she said.

“Mr. Trump is crazy,” Rep. Wilson told me. “He’s a liar. He’s proven to be a liar.” She said she was more “concerned about the circumstances around his death” than about what Trump said.

When I pressed Rep. Wilson on whether she was sticking by her account that she heard Trump say, “he knew what he was signing up for,” she said: “Yes.” When I reiterated that Trump claims to have proof otherwise, she said: “How about you go get that proof and call me back?”

Rep. Wilson said that the widow had been informed that her slain husband will have a closed casket funeral. “I want to know why he can’t have an open casket,” Rep. Wilson said. “They told us no, because of the condition of the body.” She said that the widow was “distraught” over this, adding: “When don’t you have an open casket? When the face or the head is disfigured, right?”

Rep. Wilson said she had known the slain solder for a long time, noting that he had passed through the mentoring program for boys of color she founded in Miami in 1993. It’s called the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project. She said she had “practically raised” him. She added that there is also a scholarship fund bearing his name.

posted by zombieflanders at 7:32 AM on October 18, 2017 [66 favorites]

Cookiebastard: One nazi motherfucker gets punched ONE TIME and they will mobilize the National Fucking Guard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

And there was the anti-Nazi protester who was run over by a neo-Nazi in a car in Charlottesville, let's not forget Heather Heyer just yet. Or DeAndre Harris, who was attacked by white supremacists while a police man stood by. (Good news from C-ville: Judge Bob Downer doesn't think too highly of the KKK members who appeared in his court - all defendants will re-appear in his court later, while Harris was released on an unsecured bond.)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:35 AM on October 18, 2017 [21 favorites]

Reminder this all started when Trump decided to shit on Obama for not calling families of KIA soldiers. If he had acknowledged their deaths (parody account) no one would be giving a shit.

Also did he ever talk about the sailors that were lost in that Navy collision?
posted by PenDevil at 7:35 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

but the article now includes confirmation from Sgt. Johnson's mother, who was in the car:

So we're less than 24 hours from Trump attacking another Gold Star mom. Well done Republican voters.
posted by chris24 at 7:35 AM on October 18, 2017 [27 favorites]

Sessions isn't going to answer...
posted by parm=serial at 7:37 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

The same Trump Cultists who have been screaming bloody murder about how football players kneeling during the anthem [1] being disrespectful to "the troops" will not waver even slightly in their devotion to Trump despite his blatant disrespect of an actual fallen soldier.

We knew all along that they were faking their outrage because saying "I hate black people who get uppity" wouldn't play well on TV. But to see it so sharply illustrated so quickly is startling.

And the "liberal media" will keep right on pretending that the Republicans have legitimate moral concerns and outrages.

It'd be nice if the rock solid empirical proof we have of the Republicans being the amoral scum we know them to be changed anything, but it won't. The Republicans haven't had actual moral authority on any topic since at least 1968. But that hasn't stopped our media from pretending that they do. And this latest set of outrages won't either. The establishment media is going to lie and spin all it can to pretend that Trump is normal and that the Republicans have legitimate concerns and moral standing.

[1] And WTF kind of bizarre country do we live in where we have the national anthem played before sporting events anyway? How does that make any sense at all?
posted by sotonohito at 7:43 AM on October 18, 2017 [33 favorites]

sotonohito: And WTF kind of bizarre country do we live in where we have the national anthem played before sporting events anyway? How does that make any sense at all?

The first thing to remember is that it's a battle song.

The most memorable lines involve rockets and bombs, and the lesser-known verses conjure "the havoc of war" and "the gloom of the grave."

The second thing to remember? It's a taunt, a lyrical grenade chucked at a defeated opponent. "See that flag still flying, the one you tried to capture?" it famously asks the British. Then it answers: "Scoreboard."

That's why, in a country that loudly lauds actions on the battlefield and the playing field, "The Star-Spangled Banner" and American athletics have a nearly indissoluble marriage. Hatched during one war, institutionalized during another, this song has become so entrenched in our sports identity that it's almost impossible to think of one without the other.

Our nation honors war. Our nation loves sports. Our nation glorifies winning. Our national anthem strikes all three chords at the same time.

Luke Cyphers and Ethan Trex for ESPN, Sept. 8, 2011
posted by filthy light thief at 7:50 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

It was also sung out of respect for soldiers at the end of World War I. I don't have a problem with that any more than I have a problem with other traditions of supporting the troops but not the war.
posted by Melismata at 7:56 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

[1]

Holy hell do I have a LOT to say on this topic both as an American and as a baseball fan who goes to games. Sparing y'all the derail. tldr: grrr
posted by ezust at 7:57 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

sotonohito: It'd be nice if the rock solid empirical proof we have of the Republicans being the amoral scum we know them to be changed anything, but it won't.

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds -- New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. (By Elizabeth Kolbert for the New Yorker, Feb. 27, 2017 issue)

TIL: this problem with people has been documented and described since the 1970s. “Once formed,” the researchers observed dryly, “impressions are remarkably perseverant.” And worse:

Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” the researchers noted. In this case, the failure was “particularly impressive,” since two data points would never have been enough information to generalize from.

The Stanford studies became famous. Coming from a group of academics in the nineteen-seventies, the contention that people can’t think straight was shocking. It isn’t any longer. Thousands of subsequent experiments have confirmed (and elaborated on) this finding. As everyone who’s followed the research—or even occasionally picked up a copy of Psychology Today—knows, any graduate student with a clipboard can demonstrate that reasonable-seeming people are often totally irrational. Rarely has this insight seemed more relevant than it does right now.
...
Humans, they point out, aren’t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind about are our own.
...
There must be some way, they maintain, to convince people that vaccines are good for kids, and handguns are dangerous. (Another widespread but statistically insupportable belief they’d like to discredit is that owning a gun makes you safer.) But here they encounter the very problems they have enumerated. Providing people with accurate information doesn’t seem to help; they simply discount it. Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science. “The challenge that remains,” they write toward the end of their book, “is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief.”

posted by filthy light thief at 7:57 AM on October 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

[1] And WTF kind of bizarre country do we live in where we have the national anthem played before sporting events anyway? How does that make any sense at all?

It became popular after September 5, 1918, during Game 1 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs.

For better or worse, we are a nationalistic country. For many reasons. One of the reasons we've been economically and socially successful as a nation for the last couple of centuries is our strong sense of nationalism, which helps bring together our internal populations with diverse values and needs and drives them towards common goals. It allowed us to enter World Wars 1 and 2 with an intense military buildup, and our presence was key to victory. Our history of welcoming immigration and immigrants' ensuing cultural diffusion and absorption into American culture have also been successful thanks to a strong sense of American national identity. There are downsides, obviously. Some of our more horrific acts -- especially military atrocities and domestic abuse of minorities and acts of genocide against Native Americans -- have been done in the name of American nationalism.
posted by zarq at 7:58 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Donald Trump Bragged About the Renoir on His Private Jet. Experts Say It’s a Fake. Two art historians don't hesitate to speak to the painting's authenticity, if not to the president's state of mind.

Fake news, I suppose...
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:59 AM on October 18, 2017 [47 favorites]

I wonder how much more of this Kelly can take.
posted by Devonian at 8:04 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm slow on the pick-up: The reason that Venezuela and North Korea travel bans were allowed to stand was because they're not Muslim majority countries, while North Korea “does not cooperate with the United States government in any respect and fails to satisfy all information-sharing requirements,” and Venezuelan officials themselves have been uncooperative; therefore, only the government has been banned.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:04 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Fake news hues, I suppose..

FTFY.
posted by jammer at 8:05 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Worth noting that there are countries where that nationalism is either non-existent or way toned down. I have family in Argentina and they cannot understand why Americans are so obsessed with and proud of being American and various "American" values. They also think Texans' obsession with Texas is a distilled and concentrated-to-an-extreme essence of American nationalism.
posted by zarq at 8:06 AM on October 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Donald Trump Bragged About the Renoir on His Private Jet. Experts Say It’s a Fake. Two art historians don't hesitate to speak to the painting's authenticity, if not to the president's state of mind.

I have seen that Renoir up close and personal at the AIC with my own two eyes, and I promise you it is not hanging on Trump's dumb plane. Holy shit. It never ends with this guy. Also who puts a Renoir on a plane?
posted by dis_integration at 8:07 AM on October 18, 2017 [34 favorites]

the Renoir on His Private Jet

Man of the fucking people right here.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:10 AM on October 18, 2017 [42 favorites]

I don’t think I can stand to watch hours and hours of Evil Keebler Elf testifying, but Leahy just got all Perry Mason on him over his lying to Congress about meeting with any Russians. He really stumbled when asked if he’s been interviewed by the special council.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:12 AM on October 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

Reminder: Trump Still Hasn't Fulfilled Promise To Declare Opioid Epidemic As A National Emergency (NPR, Oct. 17, 2017)

President Trump's nominee to head the Drug Enforcement Administration pulled out amid controversy. This leaves Trump without a permanent heads at Department of Health and Human Services and the DEA. All the while, his promised declaration of a national emergency on opioids has yet to materialize.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

President Trump's nominee to be the nation's drug czar withdrew today, the ending to a story that started just two days ago. The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" reported that the nominee, Republican Congressman Tom Marino, had pushed legislation that weakened the government's ability to fight the opioid crisis. Trump talked to FOX News Radio this morning.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And Tom Marino said, look; I'll take a pass. I have no choice. I really will take a pass. I want to do it. And he was very gracious. I have to say that.

O_oO

Why am I still shocked he has no capacity to say "my fault here" in any capacity? "I have no choice" to not hire the ghoul who was identified as "the chief advocate of the law that hobbled the DEA" in the fight in the opioid crisis in the recent Washington Post and ‘60 Minutes’ investigation?
posted by filthy light thief at 8:14 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Here is Trump's Renoir on Google Streetview
posted by theodolite at 8:16 AM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

Donald Trump Bragged About the Renoir on His Private Jet. Experts Say It’s a Fake.

Clicking on the link, I assumed that the painting in question would be a more obscure Renoir, one that someone who wasn't super interested in the Impressionists would not be familiar with. It's not. It's an extremely well-known painting that is instantly identifiable to anyone who has even the most passing familiarity with Renoir. There is no possibility that this is the original or a variant by Renoir, and there is no possibility that it would fool anyone with a liberal arts education. As usual with Donnie Two-Scoops, he consciously aims his grift at the badly-educated, the thoughtless and people totally unfamiliar with modern Western history.

I mean, this painting was the cover of a coffee table book that we had when I was little. I have seen it at the Chicago Art Institute many times. It's a bit of a cliche, actually. You don't need some kind of rarified education to know that the original is not on Trump's jet.
posted by Frowner at 8:16 AM on October 18, 2017 [44 favorites]

I will give ground about the anthem if I can get a law that playing Cotton Eye Joe at sporting events is punishable by public tasing, and being launched from a trebuchet on a second offense.
posted by delfin at 8:16 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Regarding Trump's failure to do anything about the opioid crisis, don't worry - some states and cities are fighting the good fight: After Taking On Big Tobacco 20 Years Ago, Former Mississippi AG Is Trying Again With Opioids (NPR, Oct. 17, 2017)

When Mike Moore was Mississippi's attorney general, he spearheaded the 50-state lawsuit against Big Tobacco. Now, he's trying to do the same thing against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

The fight against the opioid epidemic is unfolding outside Washington, too. Ten states are suing opioid makers - so are a number of cities and counties. On many of these lawsuits, you'll find the fingerprints of one man, a lawyer named Mike Moore. When Moore was attorney general of Mississippi two decades ago, he persuaded states to take on Big Tobacco, and they won the biggest civil settlement in U.S. history. Now Mike Moore wants to lead States in a new fight against the opioid industry. And this time, he told me the battle is personal.

posted by filthy light thief at 8:16 AM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

I guess in a way having an obviously fake Renoir is a power move - you're basically saying "I am obviously, blatantly lying in a particularly pointless way, and you can't do anything about it".
posted by Frowner at 8:18 AM on October 18, 2017 [38 favorites]

Donald Trump Bragged About the Renoir on His Private Jet. Experts Say It’s a Fake.

Well, if he insists it's real, I'm sure he paid the appropriate sales/use tax to NYS on the purchase price. Would be a shame if someone reported him for possible tax evasion.
posted by melissasaurus at 8:19 AM on October 18, 2017 [33 favorites]

I like to think some scam artist took several million dollars from Trump in exchange for an "original" Renoir.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:21 AM on October 18, 2017 [56 favorites]

There's a good chance that he really thinks it's authentic and was conned by an art dealer who knew how stupid he is.
posted by octothorpe at 8:22 AM on October 18, 2017 [27 favorites]

I gotta admit -- the lie about the Renoir is so comically bad, so easily disproved, and so brazen that I am in awe of its sheer audacity. I found this sort of thing hilarious when Donny was a mere huckster, but as a figure of unknowable responsibility, showing himself to be such a non-functional human being -- that's pretty terrifying. And this happens multiple times a day, and is nothing remarkable. Fascinating, really. Perversely, tragically fascinating.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:22 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

it's a copy of an existing Renoir that's currently on public display in a museum

Of course it is, because it's always the stupidest possible scenario when it comes to this fucking guy.
posted by salix at 8:24 AM on October 18, 2017 [45 favorites]

And here's what could happen, should Trump actually declare the opioid crisis a National Emergency (Christopher Ingraham for Washington Post, Aug. 10, 2017, over two months ago when Trump first said he'd declare a National Emergency)

“First, it lets states and localities that are designated disaster zones to access money in the federal Disaster Relief Fund, just like they could if they had a tornado or hurricane,” [Keith Humphreys, an addiction specialist at Stanford University] said. States and cities would be able to request disaster zone declarations from the White House, which would enable them to use federal funds for drug treatment, overdose-reversal medication and more.

“Second, declaring an emergency allows temporary waivers of many rules regarding federal programs,” Humphreys said. “For example, currently Medicaid can't reimburse drug treatment in large residential facilities (16 or more beds). That could be waived in an emergency.”

Oh hey, Trump will totally make that emergency declaration ... next week (CNN, embedded video of our idiot in chief at a presser on Oct. 16, 2017).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:27 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Fakes On A Plane (and absolutely in the plural, if 45's on there at the time).

like to think some scam artist took several million dollars from Trump in exchange for an "original" Renoir.

Oh, come on. Everyone knows he gets his charity to pay for his paintings.
posted by Devonian at 8:28 AM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

Craft brewery resistance
posted by jgirl at 8:28 AM on October 18, 2017 [50 favorites]

I mean, this painting was the cover of a coffee table book that we had when I was little.

MY PARENTS had a print of that painting on the wall when I was a kid, and my folks were not into art. (It was probably a gift.) That Trump thinks anyone would believe him -- oh, wait, right. It doesn't matter because it's his way of asserting dominance, not about telling the truth.
posted by suelac at 8:29 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

But now when they claim that getting a blow job in the Oval Office is an impeachable offense we can just laugh. Or when they say that we need to respect federalism and let states legislate on topic X, we can ignore them. Claims to principles may have once been true for some Republicans, but there are no principled Republicans left in the national party. Not a single one.

I hope we can get NPR (and the media at large) to get the message.
posted by Gelatin at 8:34 AM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

Craft brewery resistance

Unfortunately, the scumbags have cottoned to the "grab tickets to deny seats" plan. They just issue more tickets than they have seats, and if there are ticket-holders who aren't admitted, they point to that as a victory, that there's more demand for the speaker. They'll even try spinning it to blame the liberals, or say that the venue bait-and-switched them to a smaller room.

Good of this brewery to publicly voice opposition, but they're not really going to affect attendance.
posted by explosion at 8:36 AM on October 18, 2017

You know how Trumo said he had proof that he didn't say "he knew what he was getting into" The Sentintel has an update to their story:

According to a source close to the president, President Donald Trump was "misunderstood" in his comments to an army widow, and only meant to console the widow - though an early morning tweet issued by the president bypassed his condolences to tear into Congresswoman Fredericka Wilson.

"This president cares deeply. Maybe he said something that was misunderstood, but he certainly cares about fallen servicemen and women," the source said speaking on background.

posted by Room 641-A at 8:37 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Engadget is reporting Facebook and Google reportedly helped set up anti-Muslim election ads
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 8:38 AM on October 18, 2017 [26 favorites]

Sessions is in front of Judiciary right now
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:39 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

What other laws of codes of conduct is the Trump organization violating that we haven't heard about?

all of them
probably literally all of them
posted by halation at 8:45 AM on October 18, 2017 [43 favorites]

> Oh, come on. Everyone knows he gets his charity to pay for his paintings.

I suspect someone smarter than I am about how money laundering works could explain exactly how the acquisition of expensive fake paintings can be used to get money out of a charity and into [wherever].
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:46 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Pruitt: Scientists receiving federal grants will be cut from EPA advising roles

To some, perhaps a boring story, hidden down the page in the news. But Pruitt is quietly doing as much damage as anyone in the current administration. He's not going after just the executive rulings that the Koch's don't like (which is hard, as many are required by legislation or court-mandated requirements), he's systematically dismantling the parts of the EPA that keep it effective and functioning. He's knocking out the support structures like this advisory panel to do the most damage he can to the agency, in this case stacking the board to ensure regulatory capture. One example of many. His legacy is going to take years to fix.
posted by bonehead at 8:47 AM on October 18, 2017 [52 favorites]

Here is Trump's Renoir on Google Streetview

Finally, the potus45 threads have brought me a little piece of unalloyed happiness. I grew up in Chicago and AIC was my favorite place in town, I used to go there just to wander. It's one of the things I miss most about Chicago (that, and Bike the Drive, and Delilah's, and the Vic, and Empty Bottle, and the Harold Washington Library downtown, and that little Chinese place under the El on Lake Street, and the huge apocalyptic thunderstorms we used to get in late summer, and and and). Anyway I had no idea you could explore AIC through Google Streetview. Not quite the same as being there but it definitely brings back some happy memories. Thanks theodolite.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 8:48 AM on October 18, 2017 [29 favorites]

Now a judge is lobbying for Trump in court. FFS.
posted by juiceCake at 8:49 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Apparently Sessions just testified he cannot release any information without approval from the President. That’s really, really not how executive privledge works. Sen. Whitehouse questioning him about whether he knows the AG has his own discretion. Not clear what Sessions is doing as AG if he’s taking every decision to Trump for the final sign off. Trump is his own AG.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:50 AM on October 18, 2017 [63 favorites]

I have had it with these motherfucking Impressionists on this motherfucking plane!
posted by kirkaracha at 8:52 AM on October 18, 2017 [61 favorites]

Graham asking about the fucking wall. What the fuck does Sessions have to do with the wall?
posted by Talez at 8:52 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Graham just "misspoke" and asked Sessions about the Clintons' involvement in Russian manipulation of the 2016 election. So.

Now he's asking about the tarmac meeting.
posted by Donald Trump Sex Nightmare at 8:53 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Graham asking about the fucking wall. What the fuck does Sessions have to do with the wall?

The question was about how long the wall would be, and if Sessions would be in favor of trading mercy for DACA children in exchange for wall funding.

(But yeah, totally just a stunt for the cameras.)
posted by XMLicious at 8:55 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

"This president cares deeply. Maybe he said something that was misunderstood, but he certainly cares about fallen servicemen and women," the source said speaking on background.

Ah. So, "on background" is synonymous with "through his hat".

Noted.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:58 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

The long silences as Sessions figures out how to answer without perjuring himself.
posted by Talez at 8:58 AM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

What was Graham asking about the reason Comey got involved in the Clinton email investigation was because of a special email that was stolen? Did I misunderstand? It felt like a revelation but I couldn't absorb it quick enough.
posted by Brainy at 8:59 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

> Engadget is reporting Facebook and Google reportedly helped set up anti-Muslim election ads

Don't Be Evil (Until the Check Clears)
posted by tonycpsu at 9:03 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Who else has developed a morning ritual of checking the presidential twitter feed and then staring blankly into space for several minutes

Nope. I blocked that fucker months ago. It felt so damn good. I highly recommend it!
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:11 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

"Like Canada's immigration policy, more merit-based!" says Sessions, in response to Cruz. Except for merit-based refugees, of course.
posted by XMLicious at 9:12 AM on October 18, 2017

What was Graham asking about the reason Comey got involved in the Clinton email investigation was because of a special email that was stolen? Did I misunderstand? It felt like a revelation but I couldn't absorb it quick enough.

I am not watching and didn't hear the question. But from your description, I expect he was talking about this.

The Washington Post reported this week that Comey's controversial decision to detail the FBI's findings in the Clinton email case last July was influenced by a dubious Russian document now considered by the FBI to be bad intelligence.

The document, purported to be created by Russian intelligence, claimed Lynch had privately assured someone in Clinton's presidential campaign that the probe into the former secretary of State's handling of classified information would go nowhere.

Comey briefed lawmakers in classified sessions several months ago about the Russian intelligence that described emails purportedly between the then-chair of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and a Clinton campaign operative suggesting Lynch would make the FBI probe go away, according to CNN.

The FBI chief expressed concern in the sessions that the Russian information may "drop," undermining the Clinton probe and the Justice Department itself, one government official told CNN.

posted by OnceUponATime at 9:13 AM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

Deep upthread someone asked how you win a debate against people who willfully disregard facts and reason.

If I have a political project in my participation in these threads, it's in observing the ways that people presume that political disputes are resolved through debate and reason, and then observing how in all of those cases those disputes are instead resolved through organization and action. All of those cases — I stand by the strong universalizing claim here.

So the way you beat them is by out-organizing them, by getting more people on our side than theirs, by denying them space in the room where decisions are made, through materially demonstrating that our side can beat their side, not in the domain of reasoned dispute but in the domain of who can get there the first with the most, in the domain of who can be sneakiest when being sneaky matters, in the domain of effectively disorganizing and demoralizing everyone not on our side.

Debate plays almost no role in this. Rhetoric, now rhetoric plays a huge role, as does propaganda, and effective knowledge of human psychology, and material resources — money, media outlets, control of institutional processes. Debate is a sideshow. Facts matter insofar as having the right facts can point you toward the most effective organizational strategy and the most effective way to disorganize your opponents, but simply having more accurate facts than the other side means nothing.

The reason why I am insistent on railing against liberal Enlightenment ideology is that it leads to miserable, ineffective tactics. There's a liberal idea, baked deep into our pre-2016 culture, that says that reasoned debate between formal equals is the best way to resolve disputes, and that therefore the best decision making processes involve constructing a sandbox where we pretend that reasoned debate is how disputes are resolved, and then act according to what we decide on within that sandbox. This idea was so deep in our culture that we forgot that the sandbox was a sandbox; we started to think that that was how the world really worked. And so, just like in 1933, we were helpless when people who recognized the sandbox was a sandbox walked over to the sandbox, took a healthy shit in it, then flipped the whole thing over.

The thing is, it's not just that the sandbox is susceptible to sudden major attack from outside, from people who are like "fuck debate I'm taking what I want." It's that the reality outside the sandbox of reasoned debate is always intruding, and reasoned debate is never determinative of decision-making processes, no matter how intent you are in establishing an abstraction that lets you think that reason rules. The bosses and the capital-owners always put their thumbs on the scale of reasoned debate by buying the participants and the judges, the cops always abuse their position as enforcers of law derived by reason to their own unreasoned benefit. The sandbox is a leaky abstraction; there's always buffer overruns and always people ready to exploit them.

This is why I'm always dismissive of people here and elsewhere who are like "well we just gotta fix our processes by [reforming campaign finance laws/doubling the size of the house of representatives/whatever weird shit Lessig is on about these days]. It's not about processes. It's about organized power. It's about who owns what. It's about who can convince whom of what, not about what's true or what's right. This is the distinction between left and liberal: liberal solutions involve funding fair processes — about trying to patch up the sandbox so we can go back to pretending reason rules — while left solutions are about acknowledging that the sandbox is impossible and (governed by our collective senses of fairness, justice, reason, empathy, and love) making those solutions real in the world.

This is a hard grim thing, though, because if you're coming from the liberal position you can pretend there's a rock-solid foundation for your actions. You can say "well, we have a process, and that process allows for decision making based on reasoned debate, and we followed that process and here's the result it yielded, so we know we have good reason to do what we're doing." If you admit that that foundation, which seems rock-solid, is built on sand, you have no way whatsoever to be certain that what you're doing is right. And because you can't rely on a process to ensure that the conditions you want remain extant, there is no end to the process of struggle — struggle informed by reason, but never governed by it, because reason can't govern, and if you trick yourselves into thinking reason can govern you've gone and made yourself susceptible to attack by nazi thugs who are quite eager indeed to show you your error.


It's a hell of a world we're living in. But living in it beats the alternatives.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:21 AM on October 18, 2017 [159 favorites]

"Like Canada's immigration policy, more merit-based!" says Sessions, in response to Cruz. Except for merit-based refugees, of course.

Canada has been bringing in 0.1% of the population in refugees in round numbers over the past few years (even a bit more last year). That would be about what 300k refugees accepted per year in the US? Actual US figures are a quarter of that, 80,000 or so, a bit more than 0.025% of the population.
posted by bonehead at 9:25 AM on October 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

I suspect someone smarter than I am about how money laundering works could explain exactly how the acquisition of expensive fake paintings can be used to get money out of a charity and into [wherever].

Art is used for money laundering all the time. It's practically the whole reason there is an art market. There's nothing to it. Art can be bought and sold anonymously. A person can simply say they've sold a painting for whatever amount of illicit income needs to be laundered, and just like that, it has been. Meanwhile, the painting is sitting in some salt mine in Switzerland, never being taxed, never changing hands, and never having been seen by the launderer in the first place.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:27 AM on October 18, 2017 [30 favorites]

Sessions is very hurt by Franken's allegations. Very hurt indeed.

Moments later, Sasse dumped a Dr. Pepper on Ted Cruz. Clowns.
posted by Donald Trump Sex Nightmare at 9:28 AM on October 18, 2017 [26 favorites]

Sessions' defense just now was that when Franken said "communications between Trump surrogates and Russian officials", Sessions interpreted it to mean "literally all Trump surrogates", and that the question was so absurd he could not be expected to respond appropriately.

Franken cracked up a little and explained that the term "Trump surrogates" is not the same as "literally all Trump surrogates".

Sessions does not seem comfortable defending himself on this point, and his defense seems less than persuasive.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:32 AM on October 18, 2017 [33 favorites]

In slightly good news, Ben Sasse dumped a Dr Pepper on Ted Cruz.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:35 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Oh my God! I would never look at 45's Twitter feed, not ever. This is political Stockholm Syndrome, to view such a thing. History will laugh and laugh over the Twitter feed. Yeah, don't do this to yourself. 45 is a one man doomsday clock.

I guess we all now know, the classic bait and switch won this election, aside from mass manipulation on the parts of the shadow brokers. The bait, we will use morality and deep religious feelings, like a comforter to make a blanket fort, to cover the deep racism, and misogyny on the ground, where the shadow brokers never step, unless they are personally surveying pristine landscape to defile, with their business doings.

The latest scheme being that loss of manufacturing due to globalization has created social ills. Well that distills down to lack of money. The manufacturing that was lost, was lost because of low quality of the goods, especially cars, low concern for the environment early on, and relatively high cost, and poor lending practices for acquiring cars. The resale value of a GM product, vs a Toyota, or even a Saab in the day, was much higher. American made cars were like buying a douche bag, there is no resale value.

All this talk that finally hinges on abortion, abortion, abortion pulls the deep compassion comforter back into place over the deep insecurities and hatreds felt by people who can't say it was their parent, (corporation, boss, country,) who abused them, it is the presence of these others, (people of other colors, women, gay people, non Christian religious practitioners,) who caused this misery. These folks with deep ethical concerns, this is a straw emotion, highly volatile, flammable, that covers the publicly unnameable.

Richard Spencer's great gift to us all is to set the comforter on fire, and drive out everyone who though they were in a secret blanket fort. We all know the entrenched practitioners of public hatred. But, Spencer is opening up the ant hill of effects. He has publicly stated he wants to rescind the vote for women. I bet no one thought this sentiment was alive.

45 doesn't even know how big his ass is, not to mention any of this stuff. The shadow brokers have the big machines, by now they know every impulse in this nation, and are in the process of establishing ownership of them all. All kinds of things are shifting.

Sessions is not talking, primarily because he is close to not being able to talk coherently. This is why he was chosen. Someone, not 45 picked his anti-cabinet, and some of them are plainly fed up, and beginning to function on their own. This dark drama is effective, I am even gaining an appreciation for Tillerson, I mean even his name is the stuff of historical novels. The tiller, steering the ship, he is the son of a lowly tiller, yet he is king, Rex. Ha ha ha ha the drama! What did they bring William Shakespeare back out of time to name every one for this play? Sean Spicer, Spicer one who seasons food or sells spices, Gift from God who brings spices. It is just too rich the whole thing, and terribly, terribly sad.
posted by Oyéah at 9:36 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Sessions just testified he cannot release any information without approval from the President.

"Excuse me Sir, do you know what time it is?"
"My office will respond to a written request after checking with the White House."
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:36 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

#notallTrumpsurrogates
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:37 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

disputes are instead resolved through organization and action.

This, in 500-foot-high flaming letters on a mountainside. Great comment. It occurs to me that this may be the most insidious leveraging of media-as-warfare, if you keep people outraged and upset before they can even muster the energy to leave their houses, you create a lot of available real-world space for actual organizing and action for your side.

The reason why I am insistent on railing against liberal Enlightenment ideology is that it leads to miserable, ineffective tactics.

This is a sobering philosophical point to me, and I'm going to be chewing on this one for the rest of the day (at least).
posted by LooseFilter at 9:40 AM on October 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

Spicer. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. Trump. Scaramucci (straight out of commedia del'arte). Pence. Rex Tillerson (King, son of the tiller). Kellyanne Conway (Con-way). Sarah Huckabee Sanders, with a name carefully crafted to confuse the hell out of everyone familiar with American politics. "Mad Dog" Mattis.

Everyone in this administration has a name that falls into one of the following two sets:

• Names that seem like they were chosen by Dickens.
• Steve.

The simulationist hypothesis is nonsense, but I'm increasingly convinced that on a deep level our reality is in some way fictional.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:44 AM on October 18, 2017 [90 favorites]

Sessions said he refused to comment on conversations with Trump when asked if he had talked to the President about the Mueller probe. That’s an admission he’s talked to Trump about the Mueller investigation he’s supposed to be recused from.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:45 AM on October 18, 2017 [43 favorites]

The reason why I am insistent on railing against liberal Enlightenment ideology is that it leads to miserable, ineffective tactics.

There have been a lot of ups and downs, but I think on average it's worked out pretty well over the last 300 years or so.

You and I keep having this same disagreement, and it's probably getting boring to everyone else, but I still feel the need to challenge this conclusion you state as if it were a fact... that power is the only reality and there's no point to trying to impose rules on the exercise of power. Power is built on top of structures which are made up of a LOT of people working hard to support them. Those people are human beings who do have the capacity to reason, even though it is imperfect. We can refuse to prop up power structures that don't make sense to us.

It's just that "making sense" out of things is hard work. And it gets harder when there are people out there trying to confuse everybody. But that just means that those of us who have the time and energy to figure out how the power structures work and where they could work better have a responsibility to do everything we can to educate our fellow citizens. That is my project in these threads. To understand, so I can educate. (I do a lot more learning than educating here, though!)

Trying to engage people in reasoned debate given their tendencies to only believe what they want is a Sisyphean task. But you know, Sisyphus kept pushing that rock up that hill, and even though he couldn't keep it on the top... If you look over a long time, on average that rock was half way up the hill. We have to keep pushing, because a half-way decent government is still a lot better than a completely indecent one.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:46 AM on October 18, 2017 [30 favorites]

When I pressed Rep. Wilson on whether she was sticking by her account that she heard Trump say, “he knew what he was signing up for,” she said: “Yes.” When I reiterated that Trump claims to have proof otherwise, she said: “How about you go get that proof and call me back?”

This is an excellent point. The response to Trump's utter lack of credibility should be "put up or shut up." Though I agree with the comment above that predicted the White House would decline to out of "respect for the family's privacy" or some such hogwash.
posted by Gelatin at 9:48 AM on October 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

Scorching hot contrarian take alert!

Why Democrats Need Wall Street

Jonathan Chait takes this "argument" to a farm upstate:

It’s Schoen’s last point that goes completely off the rails:

Fourth, demonizing Wall Street does nothing to bridge the widening gaps in our country. Wall Street has its flaws and abuses, which were addressed in part by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. And yes, the American people are certainly hostile to and suspicious of Wall Street. But using this suspicion and hostility as the organizing principle for a major political party will consign Democrats to permanent minority status.

Note that Schoen utterly undercuts his previous points by conceding that Wall Street is extremely unpopular. That’s a pretty big concession to make in an op-ed arguing that Democrats should “strengthen ties” to the industry. But then Schoen proceeds to plead that “using this suspicion and hostility as the organizing principle for a major political party” is doomed to failure. It doesn’t matter how much people hate Wall Street, he says — a party that uses suspicion and hostility is doomed to permanent minority status. Maybe Schoen should try to think of an example of a recent political party that has used a message of suspicion and hostility and has still managed to hold on to power? It’s not actually hard to come up with one.

posted by tonycpsu at 9:48 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

> There have been a lot of ups and downs, but I think on average it's worked out pretty well over the last 300 years or so.

The Enlightenment: views differ. The timeframe in which Europeans following Enlightenment values ruled has been, even by the standards of human life on earth, one godawful catastrophe after another, no matter how nice things may have seemed from the perspective of people living in the vast Palo Alto that was 20th century White America. If it's redeemable, it's only redeemable insofar as (if we don't blow up or drown the world) there's a chance we might use our clever industrial techniques and technologies to jump into the probably impossible hyperspace of fully automated luxury communism.

Yeah I'm going to stand by this: if the Enlightenment is redeemable, only communism can redeem it. If we can't get to communism from here, the whole scheme has been a bloody disaster.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:52 AM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

Oh, come on. Everyone knows he gets his charity to pay for his paintings.

Normally I avoid huffpo, but I got sucked into a piece this morning about Weinstein and shenanigans with a charity. (There's a less detailed piece at NYT, alternately) What I was struck by was just how similar in behavior these two women-harassing men are in their complete disregard for the world other than as a tool for their desires, and the amazingly eggregious ways they'lll subvert anything to serve their needs.

It's also striking just how much effort, money, and mental power - such as they possess - they have to put into keeping the clown car running. Weinstein actually has some real success, where Trump seems to just keep failing yet hanging on to his prominence. But both have to do all this bullshit to keep their misbehavior under wraps, or to enable such petty fucking nonsense. Like the shrub height thing above. Trump has to pay - well, get someone else to pay, perhaps - that lawyer to lie in letters to the code enforcement folks. For the sake of shrubbery. It's just boggling to me.
posted by phearlez at 9:52 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Sessions does not seem comfortable defending himself on this point, and his defense seems less than persuasive.

An understatement... he just can't answer specific questions about his communications with Kislyak today, in his framing, because his intense feels and startlement at the effrontery of the questions on the subject mean that he just has to ramble on about his emotions and dedication to vague principles until his time runs out.

He also basically said that his initial perjury during the confirmation hearings, in which the substance of what he said was that he denied being a Trump surrogate and flatly stated that he hadn't met with Russians, was because the wording of the question forced him to wear the hat where he's a Trump surrogate, and while wearing that hat of course wouldn't consider fucking meeting himself with Kislyak at the RNC relevant to answering the question if he knew of anyone involved with the campaign meeting with Russians. And oh, how startled he was by the question! And it was after so many hours of hearings!
posted by XMLicious at 9:52 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

'I was very comforted': gold star families recall receiving condolences from Obama (Tom Dart for The Guardian, 18 October 2017) -- After Donald Trump criticised Barack Obama for not calling fallen service members’ loved ones, bereaved military families paint a contrasting picture

tephanie Fisher got the letter about a week later, delivered by an army casualty assistance officer: the president of the United States wished to express his condolences over the death of her son.

Staff Sgt Thomas Kent Fogarty, a 30-year-old father of two, was killed in Afghanistan in May 2012 by an improvised explosive device.

“I was very comforted. I actually felt like I could have picked up the phone and said ‘look, my son died … and I need to talk to President Obama.’ I kind of feel like I might have been able to get a hold of him,” Fisher said. “I felt like my son got lots of respect.”
...
Fisher said that Trump’s assertion did not ring true to her. “Obama’s administration seemed to me to be very much engaged with the families,” she said. “Constantly, everything that he gets criticised for, President Trump, he immediately puts it on previous presidents, especially President Obama. He misses no opportunity to deflect.”

Michelle DeFord’s son, Army Sgt David Johnson, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004, aged 37. She met Obama when she went to Washington to lobby for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump appears intent on undermining.

“I have pictures of Obama giving me a hug when he found out that I was a Gold Star mother,” she said, adding that she was touched by a letter from the former first lady, Michelle Obama, inviting her to contribute to a Christmas tree that paid tribute to deceased armed forces members and their families.

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree. And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?
posted by filthy light thief at 10:03 AM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

The reason why I am insistent on railing against liberal Enlightenment ideology is that it leads to miserable, ineffective tactics.

Easy to say, hard to prove! That is, what are the successful/ecstatic tactics that have been achieved by non-Enlightenment ideologies, and what are those ideologies? (I think we have to say that you're lumping all "humans can reason about their differences" tactics together here, rather than just those that, like, name-check Descartes.)

I just....I think this is a tempting but incorrect framing, for some of the following reasons:

1. There's an incoherency in appealing to unreason/human inability to reason as a tactic. We don't just intuit how to run a strike; we reason about tactics. What's more, at least some of the time unreason has been disastrous for organizers - deep-seated feelings about immigrants or POC or woman as unworthy to be in the union or to lead, for instance. How to figure out which intuitive/power-oriented/non-reason-y things are going to work? Well, we reason about them.

2. Lack of self-correction. It's all a power struggle, it's all based on factions struggling for stuff, Enlightenment reason is so much bullshit fraud covering over the power struggle underneath - well, how do you know whether, eg, you should torture your enemies to death? You could say "do it if it helps you win", but that has, historically, not led a lot of great places.

3. Sneaking in a foundation. "There is no foundation, only power" is just an attempt to have a foundation by other means, and a particularly bad one.

4. You're trying to get around the problem of things being defined by what they exclude, and this is like trying to get around the laws of thermodynamics. Which is why not only was the idea of reason mustered against Fascism, which was routinely described as barbaric, primordial, etc, but Fascism itself was always in knots over whether it was reasonable, futuristic, scientific, etc (Marinetti, futurists) or whether it was all about primordial terror of flows and masses (Male Fantasies). Even fascism spent a lot of time wanting to set up its own sandbox. What's more, the establishment of a better, more stable sandbox was pretty much everyone's goal during and after the war - would it be a Marxist sandbox? A social democratic sandbox? An American labor-peace sandbox?

5. The whole point of having a sandbox is to be able to say, for instance, "the equality of women is not up for debate, we are not debating whether women's brains are capable of mathematics before we talk about this education initiative".

6. The "let's reject the Enlightenment" argument always seems to be (even if you exclude all the Enlightenment-like "humans can reason" philosophies of history) like "let's reject nuclear power" - the idea that somehow we can just roll back a tremendously embedded and foundational aspect of human society as if it had never been. The only way to do that would be to smash human society to the point where the atom bomb and the Enlightenment were not even the vaguest kind of memories. We are the children of Marx and Coca-Cola, even if we don't go home for Christmas.
posted by Frowner at 10:04 AM on October 18, 2017 [78 favorites]

phearlez: Trump seems to just keep failing yet hanging on to his prominence.

Trump is a useful puppet, for Russians to launder dirty money, then as a distracting TV entity, and then as a distracting political pawn for the GOP and Russia. It's easy to roll from failure to failure when people are clearing the path of obstacles, or are actively pushing you forward.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Also, if there's anything more Enlightenment than communism-as-she-is-practiced, I can't think of it.
posted by Frowner at 10:07 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

At this point, the pollsters are just screwing with us: New Quinnipiac poll has Northam up 53-39 in VA gov race. 14 points!

I don't believe this, mind you. But if it did come to pass, Dems would almost surely flip the House of Delegates as well.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:07 AM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree. And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?

Sign an EO proclaiming Candy Corn the national treat?
posted by notyou at 10:08 AM on October 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

Scorching hot contrarian take alert!

Why Democrats Need Wall Street

I'm guessing Chait's pissed off that so many people have tagged him as a raving idiot. Picking a fight with a Republican who claims he's a still a Democrat so Fox News will put him on the air to convince actual Dems to attack their own is not going to change anyone's mind.

At the end of the column, he'll still be a raving idiot.
posted by zarq at 10:08 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Let me say this, I love my country, the USA. However the North American Continent had upward of 15 million inhabitants when the Europeans landed. Then the 300 years of utter brutality toward these inhabitants began, and has not significantly let up since. Having the Interior Department ignore the local inhabitants of the Bears Ears Area, and their ancestral burial grounds and their history to make way for the white folks is more evidence. Interior is not talking to Non Mormon Navajos, Utes, or any other tribal leaders, or traditionalist Native Americans.

For the last 300 years, this country's lands, waters, air have been ceaselessly exploited for the gain of the few, facilitating human procreation, to facilitate the gains of the few. Now the few are freaked, because lowering population figures, and rising education levels among the poorest, mean the masses they need for the bottom of their pyramid schemes, are less inclined to participate. While at the same time the rise in digital communication makes all sorts of subversion possible, even though viral communication goes unbridled, it is nothing in comparison to the organized assault on the people of this nation, and the world.

Communism lasts three generations, then it is over. It is a tool, that outlasts its use. It is a method by which the wealth of one area is redistributed, the first generation gets fed. The second generation gets fed and educated, the third generation realizes it doesn't work for the long run, and things start to shift. Right there is the crux, Earth is a closed system, and no matter how much the talking heads rave about how we have to get off planet, we have to figure out how to live here, without the Ghengis Khans, Alexanders, Caesars, David Dukes, Stalins, Mega Church ministers, Nukes, Trumps, Putins, Schickelgrubers, Marcoses, Amins, Mugabes, and practitioners of genital mutilation. Come on now.

We have done great for 300 years, we have done great damage, and some great things.
posted by Oyéah at 10:09 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?

TP Puerto Rican hurricane vict... umm wait, he did that already, didn't he?

TP disabled Puerto Rican hurricane victims in a synagogue while dressed in black-face and a Nazi uniform?

[I do realise that the reality is likely to more offensive than my most satirical imaginings]
posted by Buntix at 10:13 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree. And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?

It's almost quicker to wonder when he'll do something right.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:13 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

If reason is useless and debate is an illusion, how do I know which tribe I need to join to seize power? Or is it that I cannot choose to join any tribe? Am I totally defined by my racial and sexual demographics? Why not just pledge fealty to a king who looks like me and hope I'm not enslaved too much?

I'll stick to the Enlightenment, thanks.
posted by vibrotronica at 10:15 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

The thing about the liberal sandbox of reason is that it's a pretty big improvement over the previous system of kings and emperors. That was sort of the point. To create a world where you didn't have to assassinate people, because no one's power was so absolute that it couldn't be checked. Where civil war could be avoided, because there were ways of exercising power without killing people.

I'd argue it's been successful at avoiding Game of Thrones style politics. And given the higher population, maybe there should have been a lot more war in the past few centuries.

I also agree that reason can't govern, tho. I think most people fail to recognize the morality implicit in their worldview. I don't have time to expand on that, though.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 10:16 AM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

Virginia GOTV - where and how can blue state volunteers come to Virginia for GOTV, either the governor's race or legislative races? Would be diligent feet on the ground want to know.
posted by jointhedance at 10:18 AM on October 18, 2017

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree.

My guess: sloppy lighting catches fire, burns down White House.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:18 AM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

jointhedance, memail dogheart, she is in the know.
posted by peeedro at 10:20 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

(Liberal sandbox probably wasn't an improvement over the majority of indigenous systems, though. But IMO those systems worked at least in part because they were pre-sandboxed by stable, moderate technologies - people traveled, built, created histories, made structurally simple but ingenious and powerful machines, etc, but everyone was still basically dealing with a relatively small and stable number of people and places. You can get to a good consensus in a small, autonomous area - or a good, loose consensus among small autonomous groups - based on custom, personal relationships, familial values and history without a lot of abstraction being needed; but once you get to heterogeneous groups, vast quantities and large distances, you end up with abstractions because you have too many different histories/beliefs/habits in play.)
posted by Frowner at 10:21 AM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

There's always going to be *some* most-dominant power out there, and we want that most-dominant power to be 1. peaceful and 2. democratically-controlled. If we can get the most-dominant power to follow a process, the struggle for justice (almost) becomes one of guiding the process towards justice. YCTaB's insight is that the abstraction boundaries presented by process are leaky, and that's something important to remember. But this is so very much a baby/bathwater situation, as OnceUponATime, Frowner, and Rainbo Vagrant point out.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:22 AM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Names that seem like they were chosen by Dickens

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting our latest cabinet member, Jeremy Greyweasel (link goes to Dickensian name bot on Twitter)
posted by salix at 10:23 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?

Follow in the footsteps of Prince Harry?
posted by achrise at 10:27 AM on October 18, 2017

The whole point of having a sandbox is to be able to say, for instance, "the equality of women is not up for debate, we are not debating whether women's brains are capable of mathematics before we talk about this education initiative".

Does this kind of sandbox exist anywhere in reality though? Who gets to decide what is and is not up for debate? Who enforces this sandbox and what are their goals? "Let's have a reasoned debate" relies heavily on the definitions of "reasoned" and "debate" - who defines those terms, who enforces those definitions, who gets be seen as "reasonable," who kicks the unreasoned nondebaters out of the sandbox? The value of debate in creating positive social change depends heavily on who has the power to control the terms of the debate.

A better frame, in my opinion, would be that speech, when it is effectively disseminated, can be extremely powerful. All speech is capable of being propaganda for a cause - either in changing minds or for organizing action. Therefore, all speech must be assumed to be propaganda for a cause - regardless of whether the speaker is doing so knowingly. Debate, in that sense, is merely one of many tools that could be used to disseminate propaganda in support of your cause. But, you have to recognize the power dynamics that frame the terms of the debate in order to determine whether it is a tool that can be used for a specific cause at a particular time. We have to organize and acquire sufficient power in order to be able to wield debate as a means to achieve our goals. Otherwise, we're just a pawn in someone else's game.
posted by melissasaurus at 10:28 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

David Anderson at Balloon Juice is always worth reading on healthcare topics:

Expanded Catastrophic plans

From a distributional point of view, this is good for healthy subsidized and non-subsidized buyers, no significant change for subsidized CSR buyers, slightly worse off for subsidized Gold and Platinum buyers as the relative price spreads will increase, and bad for non-subsidized metal buyers. It might be a net improvement for non-subsidized but very high cost buyers with severe medical conditions as they were always guaranteed to hit the Out of Pocket Max in any scheme but premiums might drop enough.

Morning thoughts on Alexander-Murray

First, I still think that the relative balance of leverage could have made CSR payments a non-issue. Insurers (except in North Dakota) had been able to price the costs into their premiums and this would have led to much lower net of subsidy premiums for a lot of buyers. Secondly, this is a bill for 2019 not 2018. Finally it is nice to read a bill that actually grapples with health financing and health insurance. [...]

I really want confirmation or an argument against Catastrophic health plans as a risk adjustment play. That I think is the subtle big change in the bill. Otherwise, everything in here makes a good deal of sense. The Senate actively wants to see implementation and outreach continue. They want to make things work reasonably well. I still think that CSR did not have to be funded. I think 2018 is going to be a mess no matter what but in a no CSR funded universe, 2019 would be a universe with lower premiums and lower deductibles for more people. But that was a minority argument that seldom got much traction, so I lost it. I would vote for this bill if I was in the Senate.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:32 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

What he'll do on Christmas, I flat out guarantee is go full bore FOX News War on Christmas, and tweet a lot (and maybe even make a speech about) how thanks to him we can say "Merry Christmas" again, as opposed to the Obama era where it was a felony to say "Merry Christmas" punishable by three years of hard labor in a reeducation camp.
posted by sotonohito at 10:33 AM on October 18, 2017 [23 favorites]

If we can't get to communism from here, the whole scheme has been a bloody disaster.

"Till they have built a New Kronstadt
In America's green and pleasant land."
posted by corb at 10:35 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree

I predict the Pope is going to say something innocuous about how it's "the season to love all people everywhere" which trump will take as a personal attack and then, like Alan Rickman in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, trump will threaten to cancel Xmas and then all of his supporters will rally behind him screaming "We are at war with Christmas; we have always been at war with Christmas!"
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:36 AM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

merely to avoid having to trim some hedge

I don't think he knows what he's in for. Hedges are a thing here:

- Santa Monica Neighbors Fighting Over 40-Foot-High Hedge - Curbed LA
- Burbank resident fights city's limit on fence heights – Daily News
- The Fight for Fence/Hedge Variances - Palisadian Post
- How a rich city spent $283K fighting a gigantic hedge - The Desert Sun
posted by Room 641-A at 10:38 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

like Alan Rickman in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

Trump Jr: But why a spoon daddy? Why not an axe or...

Trump: Because it's dull you twit, it'll hurt more
posted by Groundhog Week at 10:39 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is the same system of Kings and Emperors, they are now just corporate heads of the most powerful energy and drug consortia, and their vassal investors, and investment managers. The arms industry and their active sales programs, (wars, and the pressures to make war,) still run things. It is less an entertainment, Kings and Queens on the ramparts, watching slaughter, and making diplomacy later, and agreement, after buckets 'o blood are shed by the bottom of their pyramids. It was dizzying and wonderful to give monarchy the boot, but business was so much more clever, before the addiction set in. Addiction to free resources, and the capital represented by America's share of the fossil fuels, increasingly engineered to offer ease of work arrival. Then this self perpetuating destruction set in, and we call it a civilization.

No one who threatens with nuclear destruction may speak morals, of any kind. The ultimate abuse is annihilation without concern for any living thing at the site of it, nor any living thing for miles around. The entire piece, arms, nuclear arms, armies, and funding atrocity abroad for corporate futures, (Trump: Minerals, Afghanistan has a lot of minerals, we should have just taken Iraq's oil,) are implicitly immoral, no derivative from these activities is moral.

The huge terror this administration is addressing deep inside the blanket fort, is via women's choice, we are not replacing lost white Americans, and they don't want to turn over management responsibilities to anyone but white men. That is the real terror. The other terror as manifest in the outing of Harvey Weinstein, is that ultimately every perp, of every maleficent means by which America was made great originally, is tied to answerable original sin.

One truth is we would like to continuously become a better nation, a better conservator of the planet, a better partner in the way life survives on this world, but we are considerably shamed by the doings of those who are truly in power. We cannot let them make a world where they are protected by their robots to play power with each other for sport, while nothing else worth having survives their plan. This is their plan, you know. If you look at North Korea, that place is the ultimate extension of what the shadow brokers want, only white, you see. Each one of them imagines they can be the one.

Again I will repeat a conversation I had with my prescient, blind, father on the occasion of driving through a small city in Utah, one hot afternoon. I was remarking as to how the maple trees along the roads were burnt in appearance, each leave was browned along the edges, we were idling, at an intersection when he said, "The bible says the world will end by fire, and I think they don't understand what that meant. The fire that will end this, is in every engine on this road, all the stuff they burn to make things easy." I looked at him, "What we sacrifice to make toast?" "We are that lazy." he said, "That that is what will destroy us."
posted by Oyéah at 10:42 AM on October 18, 2017 [27 favorites]

And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?


Turn out the lights and keep the candy just for himself.

It's pretty much the Republican platform.
posted by srboisvert at 10:44 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

@CavRTK (4th Squadron, 10th US Cavalry Squadron Commander):

1. When I took the Army’s Casualty Assistance and Casualty Notification Course it was the most emotionally draining class I’ve ever had
2. I think back to the memorials and ramp ceremonies I attended between 2003 and last year in Erbil and about what’s happening at home
3. We call ramp ceremonies “Hero Flights” because they take our hero home. And while we stand to pay our final respects...
4. There’s another solemn process playing out somewhere on the other side of the earth>>
5. I have a hard time holding it together during final roll calls or taps because I know what’s happening somewhere else
6. Because while we are holding our salute somewhere there is a family member who has no idea their life is about to change forever
7. They don’t know there’s a notification officer getting their dress uniform ready to deliver the worst message you can give someone
8. This is the point during the ceremony I have to take a breath because I realize it’s at this moment this is the last normal they’ll know
9. And as we pay final respects and maintain formation as the chain of command enters the aircraft and says their own goodbyes
10. I am not embarrassed to say there are seldom dry eyes as some of the toughest people I know are stripped to their core emotions
11. They know the same thing - we are only the first people whose lives are changed by this new void but others are impacted so much harder

I can't remember who it was I saw say this a few days ago, but anyone running for president should have to take the Casualty Notification Course.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:44 AM on October 18, 2017 [96 favorites]

like Alan Rickman in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

No, please. Alan Rickman was a treasure; Trump is...well, Trumpian. I do not want to conflate any image of Trump with anything Alan Rickman.

"like the deranged Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves" reads better to me.
posted by nubs at 10:45 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

I was skipping some, did we cover the Cancellation of Diwali tomorrow, and the terrible horrible inhuman phonecall to the wife of a recently deceased soldier? (black of course)
posted by infini at 10:48 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Re:
Pruitt: Scientists receiving federal grants will be cut from EPA advising roles


To me, this is pretty personal. Deb Swackhamer, who was Chair of their Board of Scientific Counselors, is a fellow professor in my department. A more thoughtful, intelligent, and learned person in the field you cannot find. If you piss her off, you are doing life wrong.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:53 AM on October 18, 2017 [30 favorites]

Sign an EO proclaiming Candy Corn the national treat?

More like Circus Peanuts, amirite?
posted by Melismata at 10:54 AM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

I have a hard time holding it together during final roll calls or taps because I know what’s happening somewhere else

That's all of us. Everywhere. Except the "president", of course. I can imagine Trump watching them walk up. "Nice uniforms. The best. Sharp."

God, fuck him forever.
posted by corb at 10:56 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

In peak WTF, this isn’t actually Melania, right?

Like on first blush that’s total Alex Jones style insanity but ...wait no that’s not her?

What the fuck.
posted by The Whelk at 10:57 AM on October 18, 2017 [47 favorites]

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree.

My guess: sloppy lighting catches fire, burns down White House.

and then blame Canada.
posted by phearlez at 10:57 AM on October 18, 2017

Also J.D Vance has been meeting with Steve Bannon in case you needed more proof his book is nothing but classist fascist apologia
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 AM on October 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

Melania is wearing dark glasses, ala a Opthalmologist visit, but her nose is swollen, like she got punched, and she is swollen and likely covering black eyes. (opinion.)
posted by Oyéah at 11:00 AM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Also J.D Vance has been meeting with Steve Bannon in case you needed more proof his book is nothing but classist fascist apologia

i didn't
posted by entropicamericana at 11:01 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

More like Circus Peanuts, amirite?

Necco wafers. The magahat of candy.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:01 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Fourth, demonizing Wall Street does nothing to bridge the widening gaps in our country.

Note that 'demonizing Wall Street' is merely calling for Wall Street to be subject to reasonable and actually enforced regulation much of which already exists.
posted by srboisvert at 11:02 AM on October 18, 2017 [29 favorites]

Spoiler: as noted upthread, Sessions is awful.

I tried to use a MetaQuote bookmarklet, but sometimes it fails to link a username and comment anchor, which is usually annoying because it's a lovely bit of code when it works without issue.

But in this case, I think the context-free spoiler is appropriate for life in general. Sessions is awful.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:02 AM on October 18, 2017

In peak WTF, this isn’t actually Melania, right?

I will not be sucked in by conspiracy nonsense
I will not be sucked in by conspiracy nonsense

*watches video*

Great. I am now a Melania truther.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:02 AM on October 18, 2017 [58 favorites]

the follow up tweet side by side makes a pretty compelling case that those are not Melania's lips or nose. . .
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:03 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

I guess in a way having an obviously fake Renoir is a power move - you're basically saying "I am obviously, blatantly lying in a particularly pointless way, and you can't do anything about it".

In the Sin City episode "That Yellow Bastard," one of the major villains, a powerful senator and member of a family of villains, explains how he can get away with pinning the child rapes and murders committed by his son on the protagonist, a hero cop. He says something to the effect that real power is the ability to lie and get people to agree with you even though they know you aren't telling the truth. Since Frank Miller is not subtle, he cites people providing him with an alibi for his murdering his own wife.

Of course, Orwell made the same observation about lies and power back in 1948, perhaps a bit more subtly.
posted by Gelatin at 11:04 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

I can't remember who it was I saw say this a few days ago, but anyone running for president should have to take the Casualty Notification Course.

We should really have a requirement that Presidential candidates should have served their country in some capacity.

Not their children.

Them.

They're the Commander in Chief of America's Armed Forces. Great. They should know what that means in every way. What it means to wear a uniform and serve their country. Because now they're going to be ordering troops into battle, and they need personal experience to have the proper perspective. To treat our soldiers and their families like individual human beings, not abstractions.

They should be put into a situation where a group of people sitting in nice comfortable offices back in Washington vote to send them into danger, where they will risk their lives. They should serve so that they learn to respect all the different kinds of sacrifices real soldiers make, and experience firsthand the various forms of disrespect soldiers endure for serving their country. Both while they are deployed and then when they return home to endless neglect and indifference from government agencies.

While they're serving, they can take the Casualty Notification Course. Let it really sink in. So they never treat our soldiers as political pawns or casually order them into battle. And that they'll show some goddamned respect for those who have died in service to their greater good.
posted by zarq at 11:05 AM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Does his fake wife like his fake painting, is what I want to know?

. . . or is she faking it.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:06 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

In peak WTF, this isn’t actually Melania, right?

Think it's just some some weird white/cream rim over the nose bit of the sunglasses weirding the perception.
posted by Buntix at 11:08 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

The military isn't the only way to serve your country, or even necessarily the best way to do so in peace time. To the extent that we have had peace time in our lifetime.
posted by phearlez at 11:08 AM on October 18, 2017 [27 favorites]

We should really have a requirement that Presidential candidates should have served their country in some capacity.

There has been a pretty large collection of retired generals standing right beside Trump nodding and clapping.
posted by srboisvert at 11:09 AM on October 18, 2017 [36 favorites]

Sessions is all steamed up! His honor has been impugned! Is there any way there could be a duel?
posted by Don Pepino at 11:10 AM on October 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

The more I look into these photos, the more I get drawn into this fake-Melania conspiracy. That's a wig, right? What have you done, The Whelk??????
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:10 AM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

I’m guessing she recently had some work done on her face. An eye job will swell up your face and give you black eyes, so will a brow lift. She’s in her 40s and married to a quintessentially shallow man. Or maybe she just didn’t use contour, or this isn’t a photo that got retouched as is standard practice from every publication. Those are her lips, her chin and her jaw line in both photos.
posted by Autumnheart at 11:11 AM on October 18, 2017 [24 favorites]

It's not about processes. It's about organized power.

There are lots of leftist popular strongmen (and a few women) who have been monsters. Being strong isn't the answer. Trotsky was a monster. Castro was a Monster. Aung San Suu Kyi is turning out to be a monster.

Process gives voice and space and protection to those who traditionally do not have it. Process is about rule of law and social contracts. It sure as hell matters if we want societies that aren't just dominated by two huge tribes that trample everyone and everything that doesn't fit the the two puralities.

Naked power is the world the corporatists like Trump want. Process is anathema to them. It's extraordinarily dangerous to buy into that worldview.
posted by bonehead at 11:13 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

I wouldn't doubt it was her just from the pictures - I think it's the nose rim of the glasses skewing things - but the fact that Trump said "my wife Melania, she's right here" does make it a lot more suspicious. If he'd said "believe me" then I'd bet money it wasn't her.
posted by Mchelly at 11:14 AM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if that's a wig because she's losing hair or her hair is rapidly thinning from stress. I think it's also possible her eyes are super puffy from stress, allergies, or having had work done.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:14 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

The more I re-watch it the more I think that the surest sign it isn't melania is that she actually looks at him for most of the time he is speaking, which is out of character.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:15 AM on October 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

Team Autumnheart. It looks like her, just puffy. It happens.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:15 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Sessions is all steamed up! His honor has been impugned!

Anyone with any real sense of integrity understands that being repeatedly in circumstances where people can question your honor is, itself, a sign of failing to have sufficient integrity. Some umpteen posts ago we had a quote from someone talking about how if you're constantly aiming to be just over the line on the right of right you've fucked things up and it's insufficient.

Of course it doesn't matter who sees him and knows this. He surely knows this as do all his supporters in the room. It's all just performative to run out the clock. Would be nice if someone were to make that the basis of a question to him, though. What do you think it means, bub, that there's just so many circumstances in your conduct that we can look to and wonder about? Do you think people of real integrity have so many ambiguous, guilty looking moments?

He wouldn't answer that either but it's not like these events are about the answers so much as they are the questions.
posted by phearlez at 11:17 AM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted. Folks, this Melania thing is sort of weird and goes to a place we don't need to go, unless there's something more to it?
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:19 AM on October 18, 2017 [38 favorites]

What do you think it means, bub, that there's just so many circumstances in your conduct that we can look to and wonder about?

"I meet with a variety of people because I'm very important and smart." You may not like or agree with it, but that doesn't matter. The goal is (or should be, if you ask me) to be able to cut through it. It's a problem if there's no institutional defense to predictable lies and obfuscations.
posted by rhizome at 11:37 AM on October 18, 2017

Wonder if he's found the Candy Desk yet.
posted by Melismata at 11:41 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, can we not spread insane paranoid conspiracy theories? Leave that to the Republicans. Thanks.
posted by Justinian at 11:44 AM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

It may be an outlier, but I don't care: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mississippi-jefferson-davis-school-renamed-obama

School name changed from "Jefferson Davis Elementary School" to "Barack Obama Magnet IB". The school's population is 98% black, so...yeah, about fucking time that name was changed.
posted by mosk at 11:45 AM on October 18, 2017 [68 favorites]

Insane paranoid conspiracy theories are my favorite part of politics, though.
posted by Coventry at 11:46 AM on October 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

Insane paranoid conspiracy theories are my favorite part of politics, though.

If only the last 18 months were nothing but a Toblerone Triangular performance piece.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:48 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

I miss the days when the insane paranoid conspiracies mostly involved the government hiding aliens from us.
posted by skycrashesdown at 11:49 AM on October 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

Insane paranoid conspiracy theories are my favorite part of politics, though.

In a further symptom of just how doolally the world is, my favourite politics of (the not just screaming despair into the sucking void but remembering to hope) are:

Mhairi Black doing that thing she does so well and ermm... the latest Wolfenstein trailer
posted by Buntix at 11:52 AM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

That's what's still happening here, right?

No, no, most of them are running for office these days.
posted by loquacious at 11:54 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

School name changed from "Jefferson Davis Elementary School" to "Barack Obama Magnet IB".

I love this!

In other Mississippi-related news: Joyce Carol Oates is apparently really bad at Twitter.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:56 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

BuzzFeed: Twitter Was Warned Repeatedly About This Fake Account Run By A Russian Troll Farm And Refused To Take It Down

The account was @TEN_GOP, a notorious troll account "that claimed to speak for the Tennessee Republican Party." RBC's Russian "troll factory" report identified it as an operation of the Internet Research Agency.

Michael Flynn followed the account and retweeted it at least once.
posted by zachlipton at 11:57 AM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

School name changed from "Jefferson Davis Elementary School" to "Barack Obama Magnet IB". The school's population is 98% black, so...yeah, about fucking time that name was changed.

Oh my God, Trump will one day have public schools named after him.
posted by Groundhog Week at 11:58 AM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

Shocker: WH @Presssec says there is NOT a recording of his conversation w/ soldier's widow. Says there were others in the room.

One of those was allegedly Kelly, so now he gets to be put in the position of either defending a grieving family or being complicit in attacking them.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:59 AM on October 18, 2017 [66 favorites]

Of course he didn't have proof. He lies even when it doesn't benefit him. If he said he has proof it means he has no proof.

Hell, if he said the sky was blue I'd check.
posted by sotonohito at 12:02 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

One of those was allegedly Kelly, so now he gets to be put in the position of either defending a grieving family or being complicit in attacking them.

Sooner or later everybody gets the meatloaf.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:02 PM on October 18, 2017 [53 favorites]

i feel like Gen. Kelly is just now permanently stuck in a hell where the Curb Your Enthusiasm music is looping nonstop
posted by halation at 12:03 PM on October 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Oh my God, Trump will one day have public schools named after him.

Not if DeVos manages to get rid of those...
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:03 PM on October 18, 2017 [26 favorites]

Thanks, Buntix! I'm so glad I clicked that Mhairi Black link.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:04 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh my God, Trump will one day have public schools named after him.

There are only 2 public schools named after Nixon. I think it's safe to say that any schools named after Trump in the future will be in Gileadesque breakaway nations.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:07 PM on October 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

The account was @TEN_GOP, a notorious troll account "that claimed to speak for the Tennessee Republican Party."

Wow, somehow I hadn't guessed that these were Russians. I just thought they were really vocal and visible Republicans.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:08 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

One of those was allegedly Kelly, so now he gets to be put in the position of either defending a grieving family or being complicit in attacking them.

Also, FWIW silence on Kelly's part doesn't absolve him of anything, it's firmly under "being complicit." After all, as his boss says--and this time it's 100% accurate--he knew what he was signing up for.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:09 PM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

We should really have a requirement that Presidential candidates should have served their country in some capacity.

I'm doing my part! Are you? SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENCANDIDACYSHIP
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:12 PM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

I was hoping that Trump recorded the call, because then we could have talked about how it would have violated Florida law requiring all-party consent on recording phone calls. But iirc I think we've gone through this before, that Trump being president = exemption for no reasonable expectation of privacy, and/or federal law supersedes Fla. law.

Still, it's always fun to think about the president breaking the law in yet another way.
posted by martin q blank at 12:13 PM on October 18, 2017

Wasn't it like yesterday that he was trying to use Kelly for some non-existent proof backing up his claim that Obama didn't call families?

We aren't even done with Wednesday, how's that work week going, Kelly?
posted by jason_steakums at 12:14 PM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

S. Sanders recap:
- Trump doesn't have tape
- Calling widow was "act of kindness"
- The media is a "disgrace"
- Rep. Wilson is "disgusting"
posted by zombieflanders at 12:16 PM on October 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

Nobody but nobody manages the perfectly infuriating blend of smug know-nothingism and defiant ignorance quite like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Well, save maybe for her boss.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:18 PM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Trump Surrogate Enjoying Thrill Of Not Knowing What She Going To Be Defending Minute To Minute
posted by Rhaomi at 12:22 PM on October 18, 2017 [24 favorites]

Other than our cultural conception of Serious Military Men who send young people to their deaths but feel really, really bad about it, is there any particular reason to think that Kelly gives the slightest shit about La David Johnson or his family and feels the tiniest amount bad about anything he's done this week? He's already happily lied about this same garbage and spent the first half of this year running some of our nation's worst, most fascist agencies with an explicitly racist agenda.
posted by Copronymus at 12:22 PM on October 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

Imagine a world where the generation that fought in World War II lived long enough to see their kids enthusiastically elect Nazis into office.
posted by Autumnheart at 12:25 PM on October 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

is there any particular reason to think that Kelly gives the slightest shit about La David Johnson JK is Gold Star Family.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 12:26 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

McCain signed onto the Democrats' Facebook Ad Disclosure Bill.

Sen. John McCain has become the first Republican to sign on to a draft bill from Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner that would increase the transparency of political advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook.

The move, announced Wednesday, marks a win for the bill's Democratic authors, who have been working for weeks to secure GOP support.

posted by xyzzy at 12:27 PM on October 18, 2017 [47 favorites]

Not to abuse edit window...And to see a paid Russian operative in the Oval Office.
posted by Autumnheart at 12:27 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

“Already got a guilty conscience. Might as well have the money, too.”
posted by Autumnheart at 12:32 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

I was hoping that Trump recorded the call, because then we could have talked about how it would have violated Florida law requiring all-party consent on recording phone calls.

But Trump is in DC (assuming he was at his desk), which is one-party. It's been a long while since I dug into this but as I recall there's no good settled law about how that shakes out when you have a conflict like that. The fact that the call was on a speakerphone where multiple other parties could listen in probably wouldn't help support the assertion that the more restrictive condition should be observed. The RCFP suggests reporters should err on the side of the more restrictive law, though they haven't updated this in 5 years and it was already becoming more problematic advice as people use cellphones and keep numbers from far-away regions.
posted by phearlez at 12:33 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

is there any particular reason to think that Kelly gives the slightest shit about La David Johnson

JK is Gold Star Family.

The Leopards Eating Faces party members always think that other people's faces deserved to be eaten but theirs is a tragedy. See also temporarily inconvenienced millionaires, looking for anonymous same-sex sex in bathrooms, immigration restrictions despite marital history, belief in master races despite looking like an overcooked pizza dough that spent too much time in the oven, email private servers, blah blah etc forever. "But they're-" when talking about these folks has no meaning other than as a trigger for pointing out abject shitty hypocrisy. It has 0 predictive value.
posted by phearlez at 12:43 PM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

That being said, Trump's attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan were not sufficient to stop Kelly from taking a job in the Trump administration, so.

Yeah, he knew what he was signing up for.
posted by nubs at 12:43 PM on October 18, 2017 [27 favorites]

Trump offered a grieving military father $25,000 in a call, but didn’t follow through

BUT WHY. WHY WOULD HE DO THIS
posted by incomple at 12:52 PM on October 18, 2017 [61 favorites]

Jeremy Nguyen has a spooky Halloween cartoon in today's New Yorker.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:54 PM on October 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

BUT WHY. WHY WOULD HE DO THIS

Because he has a record of not following up with his generous promises -- investigating this fact is how Farenthold came to such prominence.
posted by Gelatin at 12:55 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

Jpfed: "YCTaB's insight is that the abstraction boundaries presented by process are leaky, and that's something important to remember. But this is so very much a baby/bathwater situation, as OnceUponATime, Frowner, and Rainbo Vagrant point out."

Hmm, sounds like we need a Hegelian synthesis.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:56 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

And what the heck will he do (wrong) on Halloween?

Sexy Steve Bannon costume.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:01 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

Trump offered a grieving military father $25,000 in a call, but didn’t follow through

BUT WHY. WHY WOULD HE DO THIS

Hey, it's the thought that counts!
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:02 PM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

There's a liberal idea, baked deep into our pre-2016 culture, that says that reasoned debate between formal equals is the best way to resolve disputes, and that therefore the best decision making processes involve constructing a sandbox where we pretend that reasoned debate is how disputes are resolved

This fills me with dismay.

A major theme of Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust is how much easier the Nazi rise to power was because German and governance had long since abandoned liberal values.
posted by Coventry at 1:02 PM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

As we know from Washington Post that since Trump was a bullying child, he'd insist on his version of the truth despite any attempt to correct him. He's a sadist, he's a pathological liar, and a narcissist. He's got this finely honed vicious instinct.

I know this, and I know I shouldn't be outraged, but I've power-downed 200 comments including Trump's lashing out at the Representative in like five minutes. And fucking A man. Fucking A.

The PA ADAPT folks made, during their last action, trips to cabinet member houses, including Jeff Sessions. I am like ready to go scream at any member of the GOP who is complicit in Trump's rise.

I like my Enlightenment values. I like my sandbox. Start dismantling the sandbox, I'm sorry, but I am reclaiming my time, motherfuckers.
posted by angrycat at 1:07 PM on October 18, 2017 [47 favorites]

They know mail has postmarks, right?
posted by zachlipton at 1:14 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

The President's proof that Representative Wilson is lying is that the President's Chief of Staff listened to the call and thought it "was respectful", but will not talk about the details.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:16 PM on October 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

I feel like 90% of Trump's success is his ability to say things that people want to hear, and then to feel no remorse in immediately disregarding or even outright denying the things he said.

No wait, the inheritance money is 90%, this is more like 10%
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:20 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

Shorter Trump: "General Kelly says I'm a catch."
posted by drezdn at 1:22 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, what happened to him donating his salary to a charity ?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:23 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

A major theme of Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust is how much easier the Nazi rise to power was because German and governance had long since abandoned liberal values.

They'd also institutionalized antisemitism by passing far-reaching legislation against Jews. There are parallels in the recent treatment of Muslims and LGBT Americans through Trump's executive orders and laws, which vilify and allow government discrimination against them.
posted by zarq at 1:23 PM on October 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

Babyhands McBonespurs

10,000 Internet Points awarded
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:23 PM on October 18, 2017 [21 favorites]

America the...oh, hey there, Beautiful

Oh boastful and pernicious lies,
A rambler raves all day,
In purple prose and travesty,
An empty suit complains!

America! America!
The news is fake you see
The bad is good and you are rude
To ever question me!

O Beautiful, come take a seat
I'm sure that you're impressed
With all the power of my tweets
Across the world wide web!

America! America! 
God end the rule of law
Confirm my soul is made of gold
My image has no flaw!

O beautiful for heroes proved
I care about their lives
Who more than me their country loved
And hey, check out my wife!

America! America!
May words we redefine
Till all success be meaningless
And every gain is mine!
posted by ruetheday at 1:24 PM on October 18, 2017 [47 favorites]

the President's Chief of Staff listened to the call and thought it "was respectful", but will not talk about the details.

He can't talk about the details. Because the president will lie about the details the moment he does talk about them.
posted by srboisvert at 1:28 PM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

And then I think about how when it was finally time for her to try to step into the sun, the millstone of her husband's mistakes kept dragging her down.

That's not how right-wing bigotry works. If Bill's mistakes were the real reason Hillary lost, then Trump would never have even been in the running. Right-wing bigotry merely needs a flimsy public reason for the bigotry, because it's going to bigot regardless, whether it's a woman, a black, a Muslim, or a gay. Bill's mistakes were just the public window dressing for the bigotry.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:31 PM on October 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

"A White House spokeswoman says Chief of Staff John Kelly is "disgusted" that dealing with military deaths has become "politicized." Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that Kelly is frustrated that "the focus has become on the process and not that American lives were lost." Sanders did not directly address whether Kelly knew that Trump would cite the death of his son in Afghanistan to question whether President Barack Obama had properly honored the war dead."

"the focus has become on the process and not that American lives were lost."

The "process" is supposed to be respectful the American lives that are lost. The "process" is supposed to offer respect, support and condolences to their families and loved ones. Instead, our Commander in Chief is so fucking addled, compassionless and full of himself that while talking to the widow of a soldier whose life was sacrificed, he can't remember the man's name.
posted by zarq at 1:33 PM on October 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

BUT WHY. WHY WOULD HE DO THIS

It's a reflex he falls back on to extract admiration from people in the moment. He offers them an extravagant (to them) gift so they'll give him the kind of favorable reaction his narcissism requires. Once that happens follow-through & execution of the promise isn't a thing he concerns himself with, he's already got what he wants from the exchange.
posted by scalefree at 1:34 PM on October 18, 2017 [54 favorites]

aren't military deaths inherently political
posted by entropicamericana at 1:35 PM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

aren't all deaths inherently political
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:37 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

So, politics is inevitable?
posted by Melismata at 1:40 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

while talking to the widow of a soldier whose life was sacrificed, he can't remember the man's name

My hunch: he just didn't want to say the name "La David."
posted by kelborel at 1:41 PM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Judge orders Trump administration to allow abortion for undocumented teen (Maria Sacchetti, WaPo)

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to allow an undocumented teenager in its custody to have an abortion, after saying she was “astounded” the Trump administration was trying to prevent the procedure.

Lawyers for Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled to U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington that the 17-year-old, who crossed the border from Mexico illegally last month, did not have a constitutional right to an elective abortion in federal custody, unless it was a medical emergency.

Chutkan, an Obama administration nominee, said the government appeared to be presenting the teenager identified in court papers as “Jane Doe” with two options: Voluntarily return to a nation she fled to procure an abortion, or carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

“I am astounded by that position,” Chutkan said in a 40-minute hearing that was mostly consumed by a back-and-forth between the judge and Scott Stewart, a deputy assistant attorney general.

She ordered the government to transport the teenager to have the procedure — or allow her guardian to transport her — “promptly and without delay.”

posted by Room 641-A at 1:55 PM on October 18, 2017 [69 favorites]

THIS MODERN WORLD on the last month.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:56 PM on October 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

We don't need to ditch liberalism, we need liberals (big L liberals and Conservatives) too actually live up to their ideology.

It's hard for socialism and socialists to push society toward more egalitarian forms if the center of the body politic is all relativist batshittery.

That's not to say that recognition of power relations is not important, but the process actually does matter; it allows for the democratization of power.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:57 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

So, politics is inevitable?

Politics never stops. There is no such thing as apolitical.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:57 PM on October 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

I can't remember who it was I saw say this a few days ago, but anyone running for president should have to take the Casualty Notification Course.

I googled around and found a training powerpoint deck for CNO's ... Most depressing powerpoint deck ever.

Every president should SERVE as a Casualty Notification Officer, and put it all on the line....
posted by mikelieman at 2:11 PM on October 18, 2017

That patriot is also drinking beer with a straw.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:16 PM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

And he's a Jets fan.
So probably not a patriot.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:17 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Is there are more perfect metaphor for America in 2017?

i smell burnt toast and my left arm just went numb
posted by entropicamericana at 2:18 PM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Lawyers for Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled to U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington that the 17-year-old, who crossed the border from Mexico illegally last month, did not have a constitutional right to an elective abortion in federal custody, unless it was a medical emergency.

So we're finally discovering that after all his posturing about opposing immigrants, Jeff Sessions is pro-anchor-baby. Basically, he's a radical leftist at heart. No wonder he left "filth" out of that speech at the border back in April. </🍔>
posted by XMLicious at 2:19 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Wendy Thurm (via Twitter):
The 4 families who told WaPo that they rec'd calls from Trump are white.
Dillon Baldridge: http://thefallen.militarytimes.com/corporal-dillon-c-baldridge/6568711 …
Cameron Thomas: http://thefallen.militarytimes.com/sgt-cameron-h-thomas/6568702 …
Weston Lee http://thefallen.militarytimes.com/1st-lt-weston-c-lee/6568703 …
Aaron Butler http://thefallen.militarytimes.com/army-staff-sgt-aaron-r-butler/6568719 …
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:20 PM on October 18, 2017 [38 favorites]

Frail and disoriented, Cochran says he's not retiring

The 79-year-old Cochran appeared frail and at times disoriented during a brief hallway interview on Wednesday. He was unable to answer whether he would remain chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and at one point, needed a staffer to remind him where the Senate chamber is located.

The Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee. He’s supposed to be overseeing the budget resolution, and then the actual budget markup ahead of the December shutdown date.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:21 PM on October 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

From the linked article on Trump's $25,000 offer:

He said, ‘No other president has ever done something like this,’

Even if that were true (and I'm betting it's not), who would think for a second that Trump would know that based on his actual historical knowledge?

(I don't mean that the soldier's father should have known better than to believe him. I mean it's lunacy for Trump to say shit like this, and not realize there are like, people in the world who know about past presidents who can bat that shit down.)
posted by Rykey at 2:31 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I mean it's lunacy for Trump to say shit like this, and not realize there are like, people in the world who know about past presidents who can bat that shit down

history is a chinese hoax
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:33 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

10 FOR Potus45Day = 1 TO 1460
20 LET Horror = Horror+1: LET Disgust=Disgust^2: LET Evens=Evens-1
30 PRINT "He can't get worse than today"
40 IF (Potus45Day+1) <> "ActualApocalypse" THEN LET (Potus45Day)="Hold my beer"
50 NEXT
posted by Devonian at 2:33 PM on October 18, 2017 [47 favorites]

BUT WHY. WHY WOULD HE DO THIS

HIS BRAIN IS FAILING. What once was mere sociopathy and grift has become incorrIz $p1Ng,!/ as more and more terrific. The best.
posted by petebest at 2:38 PM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Today is the day where shit got real. Trump is lying about the call to Sgt. La David T. Johnson widow. You can't fuck with the widow of a dead soldier. Nov 2018 is either going to be a total blood bath for the republican party or we're all fucked. Super simple. Either way, today is the day a line was drawn in the sand.

Trump will only be impeached if there's a democratic majority in the senate. Today is the shit-show that might make that a reality.
posted by photoslob at 2:45 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

HIS BRAIN IS FAILING.

Apologies if I posted this in a recent thread (i.e. one in the latest trump-decade). But remember when the idea that the president's brain is missing could be a running gag.

Not a recurring premonition.
posted by Buntix at 2:45 PM on October 18, 2017

Why would today be any different, he did this same thing before the election and won.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:49 PM on October 18, 2017 [45 favorites]

You can't fuck with the widow of a dead soldier.
Is a widow worse than a mother somehow?
posted by neroli at 2:50 PM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

10 FOR Potus45Day = 1 TO 1460
20 LET Horror = Horror+1: LET Disgust=Disgust^2: LET Evens=Evens-1
30 PRINT "He can't get worse than today"
40 IF (Potus45Day+1) <> "ActualApocalypse" THEN LET (Potus45Day)="Hold my beer"
50 NEXT

Potus45Day Considered Harmful
posted by maudlin at 2:53 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Why would today be any different, he did this same thing before the election and won

maybe if she were a southern, rural white widow
posted by entropicamericana at 2:53 PM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

Mhairi Black doing that thing she does so well...
posted by Buntix at 11:52 AM on October 18 [3 favorites +] [!]

Thank you. That was well worth 6+ minutes of my time. And I could listen to that accent all day long. "Hahlt ut ti-DEH!"
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:55 PM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Bill Kristol endorses Doug Jones over Roy Moore.

Bill. Kristol.

This is what NeverTrump really means. It means endorsing and aiding the other candidate that could win. Nothing less was ever sufficient. So good job, Kristol, you are the only true NeverTrumper. And yes, it physically hurts me to agree with you, but we have to acknowledge model behavior. Now where’s Rick Wilson and Egg and Sasse and all the rest.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:59 PM on October 18, 2017 [102 favorites]

Because in 2017, nothing makes sense any longer:

NYT: Ted Cruz, Who Is Not the Zodiac Killer, Acknowledges a Long-Running Joke

... People on Twitter erupted at what appeared to be Mr. Cruz’s first acknowledgment of the long-running joke. Did the one-time presidential candidate score a few points for being in on the joke? Did he ruin what was once a fun joke? Others — surely including those hearing about it for the first time through this article — were all sorts of baffled. Why did he tweet the Zodiac note? Why do people say he’s the Zodiac killer? Does anything make sense anymore?

No, it most certainly does not.
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:05 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

"In 2010, Kelly's 29-year-old son, First Lieutenant Robert Kelly, was killed in action when he stepped on a landmine while leading a platoon of Marines on a patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan."

At lunch today, I had a conversation with an epidemiology PhD candidate who has worked with Army surgeons researching factors that determine survival of casualties of war. She is desperately seeking new work because after three years it has worn her down. Primarily because of the vivid descriptions and photos she needs to review for the research, she feels shocked and traumatized repeatedly. She described in detail what these antipersonnel land mines do to the body of the person who steps on them. They are designed specifically to tear flesh and bone apart from the ground up. A direct step on them leaves the person in shreds. I told her I could never do what she does in the first place, but admire her for taking it on. I hope someone steely, but competent steps in to take her place.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:06 PM on October 18, 2017 [24 favorites]

...if you're not a man you don't have to do any of this shit for the anthem.

How about 3/5 of a man?
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:07 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

The Occasional Dana: (forward.com): ADL Slams GOP Rep. For Bringing Holocaust Denier To Meeting

“It is an insult to the memories of those killed in the Holocaust and to the Jewish community to bring a Holocaust denier to the US Congress,” ADL CEO Jonatahn Greenblatt tweeted Tuesday.

Rohrabacher brought journalist and activist Charles C. Johnson to a meeting with Sen. Rand Paul regarding information about Russian involvement in the 2016 elections that Rohrabacher had allegedly obtained from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Johnson has argued that no more than 250,000 Jews were murdered in Nazi death camps and once wrote, “I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real.”

Rohrabacher just won't let go of this Assange thing.
posted by notyou at 3:09 PM on October 18, 2017 [22 favorites]

I hope someone steely, but competent steps in to take her place.

Or, you know, the US could GTFO of Afghanistan. It's going to happen eventually, and I don't see any benefit to prolonging the inevitable.
posted by Coventry at 3:11 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

CNN reports that the $25K check was sent today, apparently.

I'm sure it was just a complete and total coincidence they happen to have sent it the same day as the recipient told a reporter the President went back on his promise. Yep. Wednesday the 18th is always been check sending day in the Trump family. No funny business here.

And seriously, CNN? This is not a situation to accept an anonymous source.
posted by zachlipton at 3:27 PM on October 18, 2017 [43 favorites]

i hope all these garbage people are miserable
posted by localhuman at 3:30 PM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

I hope someone steely, but competent steps in to take her place.

Or, you know, the US could GTFO of Afghanistan. It's going to happen eventually, and I don't see any benefit to prolonging the inevitable.
posted by Coventry at 3:11 PM on October 18 [2 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Thank you.

I was going to add as an afterthought that I hoped eventually we would end the vicious tragedy that is war so no one ever has to do this. I told her that the horror of dealing with cancer and heart disease (which I have done for 40 years) isn't the same, because war casualties are deliberate violence by humans against humans, sanctioned by governments and lauded by most of society. That level of horror I could not take.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:30 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Miami Herald, Guantánamo guards seize confidential Sept. 11 terror trial defense files

In the latest challenge to attorney-client confidentiality here, prison guards on Wednesday seized the court-approved, non-networked laptop computers and hard drives issued to the accused Sept. 11 attack plotters to prepare for their death-penalty trials.

Army Col. James L. Pohl, the case judge, ordered the Guantánamo detention center staff not to look at the material shared by defense lawyers with the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators. He ordered the prison to explain what happened to defense attorneys.

“Laptops were seized, not powered on, pending further order from you,” said prosecutor Clay Trivett.

The development comes on the heels of three lawyers in Guantánamo’s other death-penalty case quitting over an ethics issue involving a top secret allegation of invasion of attorney-client privacy. Then Monday, the prison denied the Sept. 11 team defense lawyers access to their traditional meeting site for the week, for a classified reason, before reversing itself after inquiry by the judge.

This has been an utter perversion of the notion of a justice system, and it somehow continue to get worse.
posted by zachlipton at 3:35 PM on October 18, 2017 [34 favorites]

So uhh, it looks like Chad may have been put on the Muslim Ban 3.0 list because they ran out of passport paper.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:42 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

How about 3/5 of a man?

Well if it was 2/5 you could kneel, but 3/5 is more than half, so you'll have to settle for squatting I think.
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:51 PM on October 18, 2017

Mod note: Guys I know it's well-meant, but 3/5 jokes are edging into that territory of ironic racism where even as a way of pointing out how wrong racism is, it's still pretty eeeeerrrgh. Better not to.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:53 PM on October 18, 2017 [34 favorites]

Emoluments Hearing Hints At What May Be At Stake: Trump's Tax Returns, Peter Overby, NPR

The returns didn't come up during Wednesday's hearing in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. But the hearing was the first step in a process that could loosen Trump's grip on them...

Trump is being sued by four plaintiffs who allege he is violating anti-corruption provisions in the Constitution, namely, its Foreign and Domestic Emolument clauses.

If Judge George Daniels says the plaintiffs have legal standing to proceed with the suit, they then can seek internal financial documents, including those tax returns...

The lawsuit comes from three plaintiffs in the hotel and restaurant industry, and one watchdog group, called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 3:58 PM on October 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

T.D. Strange: "The Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee. He’s supposed to be overseeing the budget resolution, and then the actual budget markup ahead of the December shutdown date."

Realistically, it probably means Shelby is doing the work right now. Cochran is just showing up to vote when needed.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:59 PM on October 18, 2017

But the article shows he's having problems doing even that.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:07 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

While it is sad in the sense than anyone losing their faculties in old age is sad and I wish it were not the case for Cochrane it seems clear to me that he shouldn't be in the legislature much less chair such an important Committee. It's dangerous and awful to prop a guy up and use him as a meat puppet.
posted by Justinian at 4:07 PM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Being propped up and used as a meat puppet was basically Reagan's entire job.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:12 PM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** VA gov:

-- Two new polls out:

* Quinnipiac has Northam up 53-39 [!]
* Fox has Northam up 49-42

This brings the polling average to Northam +5.8.

-- Also, Trump campaign strategist Jack Morgan has left the Gillespie campaign, and it does not sound like things were cordial. [WP]

** UT-03 special: We haven't heard much out of the upcoming special to replace Chaffetz, but we've got a poll showing GOPer Curtis up 46-16 over Dem Allen. Not surprising, I think this is around the 6th most Republican district in the House.

** Odds & ends:

-- Contemptible waste of oxygen Scott Walker is officially running for a third term as governor of Wisconsin. [Journal-Sentinel]

-- VA Dems doing very well with fundraising, from Northam on down.

posted by Chrysostom at 4:18 PM on October 18, 2017 [27 favorites]

*I* will eat a cake if Mueller has not already had ShitKnob's tax returns for months. And y'all can tell me whatever text you want the cake to have.
posted by yoga at 4:21 PM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

*I* will eat a cake if Mueller has not already had ShitKnob's tax returns for months. And y'all can tell me whatever text you want the cake to have.

It being 2017 I had to cycle through the possibilities that ShitKnob was an actual Republican staffer's name, a Russian operative's twitter handle, or a Trump nickname.
posted by srboisvert at 4:26 PM on October 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Scaramucci gives $25K to Wiesenthal Center after Holocaust gaffe

“On behalf of the @ScaramucciPost we will be making a $25,000 donation to The Simon Wiesenthal Center,” Scaramucci said Tuesday afternoon on his personal Twitter account. “Hopefully I spelled that right,” the tweet said, ending with a grinning emoji.

How is it possible for Trump to be associated with so many psychopaths. How.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:27 PM on October 18, 2017 [41 favorites]

I'm a little concerned about my apparently limitless capacity for hatred.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:29 PM on October 18, 2017 [73 favorites]

Why $25,000 again? Is 25K the standardized make-it-go-away bribe among NYC entitled-toxic-masculinity scumbags or what?
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:29 PM on October 18, 2017 [39 favorites]

$25K is the new six hundo
posted by halation at 4:31 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

Um. Aside from the weird 25k thing and why a grinning emoji, is he, like, making fun of a Jewish name? Am I reaching there?
posted by angrycat at 4:36 PM on October 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

How is it possible for Trump to be associated with so many psychopaths. How.

Birds of a feather now have twitter. And the internet at large. It's how ISIS has managed to attract so many psychopaths as well.
posted by cell divide at 4:36 PM on October 18, 2017

Um. Aside from the weird 25k thing and why a grinning emoji, is he, like, making fun of a Jewish name?

Yes that is exactly what he is doing.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:42 PM on October 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Maybe the charitable interpretation would be that he's making fun of his own spelling ability. Twitter terseness leads to a lot of misunderstandings. That just means he simply shouldn't have posted it in this context, though.
posted by Coventry at 4:45 PM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Sorry about that remark. Like the rest of you, I can't actually follow the news directly anymore, it's like staring directly at the sun, so I just stay here, inside mefi/tags/potus45, where it's safe. I shouldn't drain my bile here too.
posted by Rat Spatula at 4:46 PM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

"...hope I spelled that right, even though in the time it took me to type this I could verify the spelling using the very device I am typing this on "

Douche
posted by ian1977 at 4:54 PM on October 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

Yeah my take on the spelling reference in the Mooch tweet was more about, "Ooooh, Jewish name I hope I spelled that correctly because you know how they're such tricksters with all the letters and whatnot!" and less about, "After fucking up royally earlier, I sincerely hope I didn't make a mistake here, too."

Shorter Mooch tweet: $25K for Wiesenthal (sp?) LOL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by emelenjr at 4:57 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

Ooh, $25,000, is that a lot? Even after his net worth just dropped by $600 million, Trump's got $3.1 billion. Cheap motherfucker.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:58 PM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Kaine, Murkowski, Corker have all agreed to co-sponsor Murray-Alexander.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:04 PM on October 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

Sadly that bill is going nowhere. The House won't even bring it up.
posted by Justinian at 5:12 PM on October 18, 2017

The Memo: Gold Star controversy consumes White House (The Hill)

President Trump found himself in a growing maelstrom Wednesday as military families came forward to criticize how he treated them after their relatives were killed in action.

Trump lit the spark on the dispute on Monday when he claimed, incorrectly, that President Obama had not made calls to Gold Star families. Since then, that spark has become a raging blaze consuming everything else on the political stage.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:20 PM on October 18, 2017 [24 favorites]

Sadly that bill is going nowhere. The House won't even bring it up.

It could get attached to the budget deal in December, maybe along with a DACA fix. Democrats will have real leverage, Republicans cannot fund the government on their own, and I highly doubt they'll have passed tax reform by then. And both those things actually have real support among what passes for saner Republicans. Democrats should not have to give up much if anything to get them included. They cannot end a year of literally zero legislative accomplishments with the first government shutdown in history under one party control. I mean, they can, and since that's the stupidest thing possible, that's what will probably happen, but there is a path for some things to actually get done in a mega-compromise that end runs the tea party caucus yet again.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:34 PM on October 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Anyone have any journalism at hand as to how this is going over with active duty service members?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:02 PM on October 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

but there is a path for some things to actually get done

(Citation needed)
posted by delfin at 6:03 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

"your son was definitely worth $25,000" doesn't work for me no matter what.
posted by Miko at 6:14 PM on October 18, 2017 [49 favorites]

$25K is the new six hundo

Man, why you got to do a thing? Every time someone mentions Achewood, it reminds me that America could have had a 5-year old running things, which would be a massive improvement on the current toddler.

Phillipe/Todd 2020.
posted by Pink Frost at 6:20 PM on October 18, 2017 [14 favorites]

SF Chronicle, Feinstein backers mobilize for the real threat. It’s not Kevin de León. As Feinstein sets up a Super PAC (er, legally, people who are definitely not Feinstein set up a Super PAC for her) and State Senate President Kevin de León jumps into the race, Tom Steyer is still thinking about it:

“Steyer is the real issue that is stalking her right now,” said Sean Clegg, a partner in the political consulting firm SCN Strategies. “This is a guy who spent north of $70 million on Senate and gubernatorial races all around the country in 2014 election cycle, so he has a proven track record of unlimited spending.”

Steyer, who lives in San Francisco and made his money as a hedge fund manager, hasn’t said whether he’ll make a run at Feinstein. But he’s definitely thinking about it.

“I am looking at the best way to take our government back from the political establishment and to stop Donald Trump. That includes a full consideration of running for the United States Senate,” Steyer said in a statement over the weekend.

I had kind of thought de León's candidacy was going to be enough to keep Steyer out of it, especially as the two are reportedly close, but it's sounding like it might well not be.

The Sacramento Bee has more: Tom Steyer is agonizing over a Senate run: ‘We must take back our government’. It's seemingly coming down to Democrats not doing enough to seriously take on Trump and view him as the threat he is, an area in which Feinstein has been depressingly lacking this year:

In the more than 800-word email, Steyer builds out the most robust rationale to date for a Senate run, one free of outside influence, which he blames for his party’s unwillingness to more forcefully confront Trump. “Have they forgotten their moral duty not to allow America to behave in such a way as to imperil every soul on this planet?” he wrote.

posted by zachlipton at 6:23 PM on October 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz are having a town hall debating taxes right now. You can see that Cruz was a big shot litigant who argued before the Supreme Court; he's quite good. And you can see why Trump was uniquely suited to destroying him. Because no reasoned, logical debate was involved.

Not that Cruz's arguments here are necessarily true, but they are like a simulacrum of reasoned, logical debate. Which works in a town hall with Sanders or Kasich or any other actual human being but failed utterly against Trump.
posted by Justinian at 6:23 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

"your son was definitely worth $25,000" doesn't work for me no matter what.

Also, if he's as rich as he says he is (Ron: he isn't) and has like 5 billion, 25K is comparable to someone making 45K/year giving $2.

His cheap bastardness is one of many ways he's squandering his chance to actually become Emperor: Julius Caesar had his faults but he was actually generous to those loyal to him and those he sought loyalty from.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:26 PM on October 18, 2017 [39 favorites]

Metafilter: A simulacrum of reasoned, logical debate.
posted by Room 101 at 6:29 PM on October 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

I’ve tried letting go of the news and reading poetry before bed in an attempt to not be angry and indignant 24/7/365 but I just stumbled on this poem by Mary Oliver (from her 2008 collection Red Bird) and it just made me sob. I’m not sure I’ve seen a better way to put it.



Of The Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.
posted by lydhre at 6:30 PM on October 18, 2017 [94 favorites]

Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz are having a town hall debating taxes right now.

Thanks, I forgot about this, and it is awesome.
posted by Coventry at 6:31 PM on October 18, 2017

The Memo: Gold Star controversy consumes White House

But not standing during the fucking National Anthem is disrespectful to our military and our country.

Yeah, somebody tell me again how I need to reach out to the oh-so-salt-of-the-earth people who voted for and/or continue to support this goddamn monster and his garbagefireclownshow, and how we all need to step out of our bubble and join hands with people who will line up to cheer for a fucking virulent racist narcissistic opportunist that traumatizes an actual devastated spouse of one of the Green Berets he patently does not give a damn about having died in the service of this shitshow of a nation.

I mean Christ, I need to go watch the Powers Boothe Jonestown movie now to experience something less culty and full of brainwashed lunacy than this administration and its base. L. Ron Hubbard and David Koresh put together were less creepy than this nonsense. It's like a Salem Witch Trials level of hallucinogenic self-delusion and denial up in here.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:39 PM on October 18, 2017 [79 favorites]

In short: these fucking terrible people aaaaaaaarrrrrhghghdhhshshahahhdhdha.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:40 PM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

garbagefireclownshow
posted by The otter lady at 6:46 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Remember though, unlike most people whose net worth is calculated via math and generally based on things like assets and debt, Trump's net worth changes depending on his feelings. That 25K may have been the equivalent of $1, $2, or even $5 or more.

What if he's sad? In all fairness to him, that orange bag of dicks could be anything between a thoroughly disrespectful cheap bastard, and two thoroughly disrespectful cheap bastards.
posted by mrgoat at 6:46 PM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

We talked about Sessions' testimony while it happened, but this MoJo story summarizes one of the most important parts: Jeff Sessions Again Changes His Story on Meetings With Russian Ambassador

His story has gone from "I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign" to "I don’t think there was any discussion about the details of the campaign other than – it could have been in the meeting in my office or at the convention that some comment was made about what Trump’s positions were,” he said. “I think that’s possible."" to 'I don't recall' if we talked about emails. Also:

Grassley said later in the hearing that former FBI Director James Comey in March gave a classified briefing to Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, regarding Sessions’ contacts with Kislyak. (In June the Washington Post reported that intelligence intercepts did indicate that Sessions had discussed campaign-related matters with Kislyak, who then shared this information with Moscow.) But Grassley added that the FBI has refused to share the information with other members of the committee.

They've also continued with this bizarre notion of executive privilege, where Sessions won't answer questions not because executive privilege has been invoked, because Trump might invoke it sometime in the future. Which is just weird. Either you're invoking it or you're not. But they don't want to say that they are, so they're doing this and just getting away with it somehow.
posted by zachlipton at 6:51 PM on October 18, 2017 [43 favorites]

I'm just so tired.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:01 PM on October 18, 2017 [58 favorites]

I'm sure it was just a complete and total coincidence they happen to have sent it the same day as the recipient told a reporter the President went back on his promise. Yep. Wednesday the 18th is always been check sending day in the Trump family. No funny business here.

Sgt. Dillon Baldridge was killed in June.
posted by scalefree at 7:15 PM on October 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

Sessions won't answer questions not because executive privilege has been invoked, because Trump might invoke it sometime in the future.

This is flat-out contempt. Real privilege doesn't work that way. Is there no way for Grassleyto be pressured to stand up to it, despite the fact that he's a Republican?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:26 PM on October 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

I need to go watch the Powers Boothe Jonestown movie now to experience something less culty and full of brainwashed lunacy

A couple weeks ago I reviewed a play about Jim Jones. I'm old enough to recall the Jonestown horror, so I tried to avoid looking at the show just through a 2017 lens.

But I couldnt help ending the review with shade at t-Rump and every one of my deplorables who voted for him:

"(The play) is a chilling reminder ... that it’s all too easy for vulnerable people to follow the worst person down the darkest path."
posted by NorthernLite at 7:50 PM on October 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

[fake]

Senator on the Panel: Attorney General Sessions, did the president instruct you at any time that he is asserting executive privilege?

Sessions: < mumble, duck, dodge >

Senator on the Panel: Given that you are the Attorney General of the United States of America, shouldn't it be possible for you to find someone who can explain to you how privilege works?

[/fake]

I'm just really tired of the "well this was complicated, you can't expect us to know every detail of how it works" excuse. Whether it's Jared's 100th do-over on his disclosure forms or the chief law enforcement officer of the US seemingly not understanding how testimony works or the president being endlessly excused for mind-boggling fuck-ups after boldly proclaiming throughout the campaign that nobody knows the system better than he, I just am so f'ing tired..

Can't we hold just one of them responsible for something? Anything? Punish, or embarrass, or even just mildly inconvenience them in some way? Because of all of the things I find repellent about this administration I think the one which stings the most is their plainly evident belief in their own untouchability. I want, no, I need for them to at least fear that that can be taken away from them.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:00 PM on October 18, 2017 [57 favorites]

Can't we hold just one of them responsible for something? Anything? Punish, or embarrass, or even just mildly inconvenience them in some way?

You're *adorable*.
posted by uosuaq at 8:11 PM on October 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

New Yörker comic strip:Code Name Melania: Secret Agent Fighting Cyberbullying
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:16 PM on October 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

Steve ShitKnob is one of Trump's lesser steves
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:22 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Is there no way for Grassley to be pressured to stand up to it, despite the fact that he's a Republican?

Can't we hold just one of them responsible for something? Anything? Punish, or embarrass, or even just mildly inconvenience them in some way?

No. And no. What 2016-2017 has taught us is our system of government has no defense against the executive when the legislative branch is complicit in abusing democracy and refuses to use the checks and balances that were designed to work against it. Call it the revenge of Federalist 10. When one party puts party over country and over the rule of law, that's it, there is no more rule of law.

The only way is to retake electoral power, and exercise it to hold every one accountable, and rebuild the checks stronger. We're in a race between whether that can happen before they finish subverting what's left of the rule of law entirely to Republican partisanship.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:33 PM on October 18, 2017 [41 favorites]

Remember when Ashley Feinberg of Gizmodo (probably) found James Comey's seekrit Twitter? Well, Benjamin Wittes (the Tick Tock guy) has an update (probably). Mediaite has the whole story.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:55 PM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH) is out, setting up a special election if he vacates his seat early

OH-12 is PVI R+7, Trump +11. Comparable to GA-6
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:04 PM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Maybe. But I sure would love to have all of that wasted enthusiasm and 50+ million dumped into GA-6 for a single house seat and a marginal and unreliable psuedo-dem candidate to spend on Doug Jones in the AL-Sen right about now. We need a win.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:10 PM on October 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

> I sure would love to have all of that wasted enthusiasm and 50+ million dumped into GA-6 for a single house seat and a marginal and unreliable psuedo-dem candidate to spend on Doug Jones in the AL-Sen right about now.

Well you can say that now, but if GA-6 had been a close loss, we'd be shellacking the DNC for insufficient commitment to a winnable seat. It's not surprising that we're losing in strongly +R districts for now - if we overperform at the GA-6 level across the board, the Senate is within reach in 2018, not just the House. I think the key is that we need both good candidates and a fired up base - after that the money will take care of itself.

> We need a win.

Yes, we do. But on this (unlike Mueller-mas) I have faith. The wins are coming.

(We can argue about whether they'll be too little, too late or not - I think not.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:22 PM on October 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

Well you can say that now, but if GA-6 had been a close loss, we'd be shellacking the DNC for insufficient commitment to a winnable seat.

True. We needed to know they even understood the stakes then, and it was clear early on they didn't and were ready to treat Trump as business as usual until we make it clear that was not going to fucking fly. Nearly every one of them were ready to vote for Trump's cabinet of horrors, and would have if we let them. It'd be nice to A) get a win and B) have that win be for a candidate we won't have to flog into voting the marginally human way. Doug Jones seems like that candidate, where Jon Osseff told us openly and repeatedly he planned on stabbing us in the back at every turn. He explicitly ran on debt reduction third way both sides bullshit, ffs, and that's who we threw 25? 50? I don't even know how many millions at, much of it small donors who wanted to believe Ossef was somehow "the resistance candidate", just because we wanted to feel like our Democrats even cared at all. That's the energy I want back now, for what could be a much more realistic pick up in Alabama.

Yea. We need a win. We have two big opportunities with Ralph Northam and Doug Jones, and I wish I felt as much hope in either of those races as was wasted on Ossef the Boy Wonder.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:37 PM on October 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

And now I'm worried about the nonsense on the forthcoming Trump White House Christmas Tree.

Oh, I'm sure he's got a shit ton of those MAGA hat ornaments. And a lot of white and gold.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:43 PM on October 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

That's the energy I want back now, for what could be a much more realistic pick up in Alabama.

I'm excited at the closeness we're seeing with Jones, but you cannot call the ALABAMA Senate seat a more realistic pickup opportunity than GA-06.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:42 PM on October 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

National Treasure Alexandra Petri addresses the question of the other Melania.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 10:48 PM on October 18, 2017 [22 favorites]

If it actually somehow turned out that Other-Melania dude had been right, I just...I just, I don't know. I quit. That reality would be too stupid.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:10 AM on October 19, 2017

this reality is already of sufficient stupidity
posted by salix at 1:55 AM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

If it actually somehow turned out that Other-Melania dude had been right, I just...I just, I don't know. I quit. That reality would be too stupid.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:10 AM on October 19 [+] [!]

(faintly, it must be from the writer's room, I dunno, but faintly I would swear that I hear a whisper of,)

'...hold my beer...'
posted by From Bklyn at 2:07 AM on October 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

there are way more than two evil Steves, right?

> COUNT EVIL STEVES

There are 69,105 evil Steves here.
posted by delfin at 3:20 AM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

'National Treasure Alexandra Petri addresses the question of the other Melania.'

By a (small) twist of fate, I just happen to be reading Primo Levi's The Sixth Day And Other Tales which is a sort of sci-fi leaning collection of short stories from the Great Man - as I have come to call him. The story entitled 'Some Applications of the Mimer' discusses the possibility of a sort of proto 3D printing machine which leads to the (almost exact) duplication of the protagonist's wife.
posted by Myeral at 3:43 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump tweeted that he thinks they have the votes for massive tax cuts "but who knows?"

He really doesn't get this whole politics thing, does he? You're not actually supposed to say "who knows?" a bout whether you're going to pass your legislation. "Hey, coach, is your team gonna win tonight? "Who knows, Bob". "Thanks, coach!"
posted by Justinian at 3:58 AM on October 19, 2017 [41 favorites]

Melania's war against cyber-bullying might as well be a campaign against shitty presidents or terrible husbands.
posted by tillermo at 4:13 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Leopards. Faces.

Jaguars owner: Trump 'trying to soil' NFL after failing to purchase club

Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan believes there's a hidden agenda behind President Donald Trump's perceived war against the NFL. Khan believes that Trump, who once unsuccessfully tried to purchase the Buffalo Bills, feels jilted by the league and is trying to attack it to avenge a personal vendetta.

"This is a very personal issue with him," Khan told Jarrett Bell of USA TODAY Sports. "He's been elected president, where maybe a great goal he had in life to own an NFL team is not very likely," Khan added. "So to make it tougher, or to hurt the league, it's very calculated."

Khan also blasted Trump for his domestic and foreign policies that he believes discriminate against Muslims and Jews - an issue that reaches well beyond the realm of football. "Let's get real," Khan said. "The attacks on Muslims, the attacks on minorities, the attacks on Jews. I think the NFL doesn’t even come close to that on the level of being offensive. Here, it’s about money, or messing with - trying to soil a league or a brand that he’s jealous of."

Khan donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund but it appears he may harbor some regret about that decision.

posted by chris24 at 4:52 AM on October 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

"But who knows?" isn't (just) Trump's poor grasp of politics. It's also narcissist Trump laying down a bunch of eggshells for Republican congressmembers to walk on.
posted by emelenjr at 4:52 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

The Trump White House’s utterly unmoored week (WaPo)

President Trump's most faithful supporters like to believe he's always a step ahead of the media and the political establishment — that he's playing three-dimensional chess while we're stuck on checkers. Where we see utter discord, they see carefully orchestrated chaos.

This week should disabuse absolutely everybody of that notion.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

"Should" being the (in)operative word.
posted by duffell at 5:12 AM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

"So to make it tougher, or to hurt the league, it's very calculated."

No, it's not. The USFL thing was the first thing we talked about when he pooped out that initial NFL flag bullshit. It's not calculated any more than "'Did you eat that cookie?' / 'No'" is. He's not special, he's not good, he's not gifted. He's the opposite of all of those things. He has a particular political odor that some find pleasantly disorienting. That's about all you can say in his favor.

Khan donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund but it appears he may harbor some regret about that decision.

/obligatory_Shat
posted by petebest at 5:17 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Hey everyone I've been travelling and haven't followed US politics or the Trumpocalypse threads in a week! Let's see what I missed!

...

I want to go back to the comparably saner days of early October.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:19 AM on October 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

Okay so this has been rolling around my holodeck this morning, so bear with me:

RNC debates, May-ish 2016. One of the other candidates - any of them, during a typical crosstalk WTF-these-idiots-are-the-adults?-moment, a typical "Okay Little Marco" moment okay, you got the scene? Okay, says loudly and with appropriate Sobchakness: "Shut the fuck up Donny, you're out of your element!"

Okay, now tell me he wins over that. With his base? That'd be a cleaving axe wouldn't it.

Anyway.
posted by petebest at 5:24 AM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Just the president accusing the FBI of conspiring with the Russians against him.

@realDonaldTrump
Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?

---

And you know the Russia thing is getting to him because he tweeted two other times trying to link Clinton to Russia. Trump's Mirror and all.

Of course, his ego also needed a boost so he retweeted a random woman with 487 followers defending him against Obama's better record with respecting troops:

@USArmy333
Replying to @804StreetMedia @realDonaldTrump
He’s done more in 9 months then obama did in8 yrs
posted by chris24 at 5:29 AM on October 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

Ahh yes. Just another fall morning where the President of the US decides to accuse a federal agency of treason on a social media platform.
posted by xyzzy at 5:30 AM on October 19, 2017 [64 favorites]

He's live tweeting Fox and Friends again isn't he?
posted by PenDevil at 5:35 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Matthew Gertz of Media Matters is on the case!

1. Fake Dossier tweet linked to F&F
2. Uranium deal tweet linked to F&F
3. Clinton Foundation & Russia linked to F&F
posted by xyzzy at 5:42 AM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

He's live tweeting Fox and Friends again isn't he?

@realDonaldTrump
.@foxandfriends "Russia sent millions to Clinton Foundation"
posted by chris24 at 5:43 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

You know, the poem "Channel Firing" is sort of haunting me this morning. Because WWI hadn't actually broken out when Hardy wrote that poem; there were tensions, but people, from my limited understanding of history, thought that things would be worked out. Certainly not the long gore-fest that was WWI. And just as we're now like--the world could be in tatters--but somehow we'll work it out.

Another WWI poem that's haunting me is "Dulce et Decorum Est" because although I've always appreciated the ironic anger in that poem, I'd never really appreciated it as relevant to today because it's like, who thinks that about war? I'd thought it was in response to the jingoism of the day.

But I'd had this student, this guy from Liberia who was hella smart but boy he struggled with the class that I was teaching. It was sort of thing where I'd say, "have you heard about the Salem witch trials" w/r/t "Young Goodman Brown" and he'd shake his head, and I'd say well okay how about the Puritans and he'd shake his head. Smart guy, just lacking the context most Western students have.

But when I got this poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est," man, he was right there with me. He understood the poem better than I did. He said, "I stepped over bodies in the street." Referring to civil war in Liberia. And he looked at me and I thought of that day in 2001 when I was in my downtown Brooklyn office, and the knowledge of what war was sort of fell over everything.

I would really like a voice I trusted assuring me that everything is going to be okay, that humanity's way forward is progress, always progress, but nothing I read is telling me ANGRYCAT CALM DOWN. It's mostly people smarter than I detailing the ways we are fucked. I'm thinking of Dexter Filkins's profile of the State Department in the New Yorker as an example. You can't read that without thinking, wow. Just fucking wow.

Anyways, this is your daily freakout from a lowly adjunct in the Humanities. Have a good Thursday.
posted by angrycat at 5:48 AM on October 19, 2017 [93 favorites]

Powerful SC GOP consultant Richard Quinn, 4 others indicted
posted by Twain Device at 6:08 AM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

@Mark Knoller: This evening, Pres Trump attends dinner at the Kuwaiti Embassy at which UN Refugee Agency honors Melania Trump for her humanitarian efforts.

The question on everyone's mind is what humanitarian efforts? Being married to Trump and wearing 5" heels to disaster areas is hardly worth an award. The other big question is which Melania will show up?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:19 AM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

@USArmy333
Replying to @804StreetMedia @realDonaldTrump
He’s done more in 9 months then obama did in8 yrs

*Putin, ISIS nod heads vigorously*
posted by Rykey at 6:19 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Ahh yes. Just another fall morning where the President of the US decides to accuse a federal agency of treason on a social media platf

The very same agency whose former head (that he fired) and significant elements at least in the New York office illegally interfered in the election on HIS behalf.

I hope Comey and the agents in the rogue NY office who spent years prolonging and leaking over the Clinton emails are happy with their man these days.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:21 AM on October 19, 2017 [37 favorites]

angrycat, I was outside on a lunch break once, and I overheard an African student saying to some faculty who he was walking with "....when I saw the soldiers kill my family, then I wanted to die" and it indeed gave me some perspective on my little problems that year.
posted by thelonius at 6:23 AM on October 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

but nothing I read is telling me ANGRYCAT CALM DOWN. It's mostly people smarter than I detailing the ways we are fucked.

I'm right there with you. I know were supposed to avoid eschatalogical fantasizing here, but there's no way things can just continue on like this forever. Something's gotta give, and when shit gives it gets dark fast. What drives me up the wall is I have no idea what anyone is supposed to do except go about their lives like we weren't on the precipice of a great catastrophe.
posted by dis_integration at 6:44 AM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

Richard Spencer is speaking today at U of Florida.
posted by ian1977 at 6:45 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

angrycat I would really like a voice I trusted assuring me that everything is going to be okay, that humanity's way forward is progress, always progress, but nothing I read is telling me ANGRYCAT CALM DOWN.

I'm not going to tell you we're fucked.

But I'm not going to tell you that everything is going to be ok and that humanity's way forward is progress.

The arc of the universe does not bend towards justice. It bends towards despotism, injustice, racism, and evil.

But we can bend it towards justice by unceasing and thankless effort.

Everything will not just be OK, but we can **MAKE** it be OK.

The labor required is immense, thankless, often viciously opposed, and often seems futile. But if we (for sufficient numbers of "we") put it in, then the universe can be forced to be more just despite having a base state of injustice.

Just as we don't simply get technological advance, or even simply get technology staying at its current level, without massive investment in infrastructure, science, and lots of people doing very difficult work in the background.

The base state of the universe is entropy and the passive evil of indifference to human suffering. We can't relax and indulge in the comforting illusion that somehow everything will just work out.

But, by putting in sufficient labor we can make things work out. That's not nearly as comforting as the belief that things will just be OK, but it has the advantage of being true.
posted by sotonohito at 6:45 AM on October 19, 2017 [52 favorites]

And one of the ways we make things work out is by vigorously opposing Nazis like Richard Spencer and deplatforming him at every opportunity. Just what exactly University of Florida thinks they're doing by giving him a space to preach his hate is beyond me.

It definitely shows how much work we have to do that the National Guard is deployed to protect a literal, self described, Nazi because he was punched in the face once (or twice), but when BLM marches the National Guard is deployed to crush the march and arrest and abuse them.

The military and the police are not on the side of good. But, and this is the important part, we can **MAKE** them be on our side by putting in sufficient labor. We can bend the arc of the universe any direction we want it to be bent. If we want it bent towards justice then we'd better get to it.
posted by sotonohito at 6:49 AM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

To not abuse the edit window:

We need an infrastructure of justice, an infrastructure of equality, to produce justice and equality. Same as we need an infrastructure of electricity, or an infrastructure of roads, to produce an society with electricity and roads.

Right now the infrastructure of justice and equality has been systemically demolished for the short term political gain of the Republicans. They'll oppose any and all efforts to rebuild it, but it can be rebuilt if enough people do the work.
posted by sotonohito at 6:52 AM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve, Washington Post:

The Daily 202: Ex-CIA officers running for Congress as Democrats

At least, more often as Democrats then as Republicans. Some report being assumed to be Republican though. Most seem to come from the CIA, though other intelligence organizations are represented too.. The whole section is worth a read, but the following stood out.

But the CIA prides itself on being independent and nonpartisan. People from across the ideological spectrum work there. “It is wholly unfortunate that the president — at least through his actions and words — isn’t appreciating what they do,” said [Abagail] Spanberger, who is running in Virginia. “At the end of the day, it’s a nonpartisan institution. To be a professional intelligence officer is really a unique path. They have a job to do: to serve the American people. So they just continue to do their jobs.”

Spanberger said what’s frustrated her the most this year has been when Trump and congressional Republicans make hasty decisions without having all the facts. Her mission at the CIA was to collect as much intelligence as possible so that policymakers could make more informed choices. “We’d ask ourselves: what information do we not have? What information are the analysts looking for? Then on the operations side, we’d look to figure out how to get that information,” she explained. “My role was to encourage people to take great risks so that our government could act wisely and make decisions based on that information.”

That’s one of the reasons that the House health-care debate really got her goat. “As a former CIA officer, the idea that the legislative body would put through a bill without so much as a CBO score was shocking to me,” Spanberger explained. “It runs antithetical to everything I believe in.”

posted by ZeusHumms at 6:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump
You can’t say Andrea Anthony didn’t try. A 37-year-old African American woman with an infectious smile, Anthony had voted in every major election since she was 18. On November 8, 2016, she went to the Clinton Rose Senior Center, her polling site on the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee, to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton. “Voting is important to me because I know I have a little, teeny, tiny voice, but that is a way for it to be heard,” she said. “Even though it’s one vote, I feel it needs to count.”
She’d lost her driver’s license a few days earlier, but she came prepared with an expired Wisconsin state ID and proof of residency. A poll worker confirmed she was registered to vote at her current address. But this was Wisconsin’s first major election that required voters—even those who were already registered—to present a current driver’s license, passport, or state or military ID to cast a ballot. Anthony couldn’t, and so she wasn’t able to vote.


posted by PenDevil at 6:55 AM on October 19, 2017 [82 favorites]

NPR: 30-Foot Border Wall Prototypes Erected In San Diego Borderlands
posted by Rykey at 6:59 AM on October 19, 2017

the way i see it, the future can only hold either openly despotic fascism or a socialized wonderland, there is no going back to the pre-trump status quo

(don't ask me which one i think we'll end up with)
posted by entropicamericana at 7:05 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Your username gives me a hint.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:14 AM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

fluttering hellfire: Also, what happened to him donating his salary to a charity ?

Trump donates salary for second consecutive quarter (John Kruzel for Politifact, July 26th, 2017)

For the second quarter in a row, President Donald Trump declined to take a salary and opted instead to gift the quarterly installment to a government entity, this time to the Department of Education.

At a White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders presented a check for $100,000 to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

DeVos said the funding would go toward hosting a camp for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students at the Department of Education.

"We want to encourage as many children as possible to explore STEM fields in the hope that many develop a passion for these fields," DeVos said.

Trump donated his first quarter salary of about $78,000 to the National Park Service.

Sanders said the first quarter funds went toward restoring two projects at a national battlefield. She added that additional donations brought the total first quarter gift to over $260,000.

And a reminder: Trump Donates Salary To National Parks Even As He Tries To Cut Interior Department (NPR, April 4, 2017) -- key quote:

[Interior Secretary Ryan] Zinke hinted, however, that the president's gift won't go very far.

"We're about $229 million behind in deferred maintenance on our battlefields alone," he said.

Oh, and don't forget Trump's second quarter donation came after proposing $9 Billion cut to Department of Education. I'm sensing a trend here - anyone want to guess what his Q3 donation will "support"?

It's like if Trump had a photo shoot of boxes of band aids being sent to states after ending state subsidies for health insurance and pretending like everything's balanced now (and sadly, few headlines directly compared Trump's cuts with his donations, so it looks like those band aids are really going over well).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:18 AM on October 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

the way i see it, the future can only hold either openly despotic fascism or a socialized wonderland, there is no going back to the pre-trump status quo

Socialism or barbarism has been a slogan since like 1916. The Cold War put the question on hold — both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were in their own distinct ways an admixture of socialism and barbarism — and at the close of the 20th century we thought we had sidestepped the question by landing on liberal market democracies as the global solution.

We thought we had reached the end of history. Really, we had reached the end of a great parenthesis — now the parenthesis is closed and we're once again faced with the question of socialism or barbarism.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:18 AM on October 19, 2017 [33 favorites]

On November 8, 2016, she went to the Clinton Rose Senior Center . . . to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton.

*phone rings in 2017 writers' room*
posted by petebest at 7:20 AM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

angrycat, the mere fact that people like you and us here _exist_ and refuse to cower subserviently pisses them off. We're not going away. And every day there are a few more of us.

We will never win over the 27%. But we can regain ground in enough races and places to thoroughly ruin their worldviews for a while.
posted by delfin at 7:20 AM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

Your username gives me a hint.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:14 AM

a hint of something, that's for sure
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:22 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

this was Wisconsin’s first major election that required voters—even those who were already registered—to present a current driver’s license, passport, or state or military ID to cast a ballot. Anthony couldn’t, and so she wasn’t able to vote.

So fucked up. I worked the polls (in Indiana, no less) this past election, and the policy was to accept State-issued IDs that were up to a few years past expiration.
posted by Rykey at 7:23 AM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Richard Spencer is speaking today at U of Florida.

Tuff guy got spooked by a nanobrewery's plan to give a free beer for each ticket turned in.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:30 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

30-Foot Border Wall Prototypes Erected In San Diego Borderlands

The pictures make me so sad. This is not what I want for my country. Or our neighbors.
posted by Dashy at 7:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [21 favorites]

Ex-CIA officers running for Congress as Democrats

(picks up TimePhone, dials 2015 self) "Hey dude you'll never guess the kind of headlines that you'll take comfort in pretty soon"

30-Foot Border Wall Prototypes Erected In San Diego Borderlands
Ooh! Can't wait for the reality TV style elimination

(urge to make "oh you mean like in Romania?" joke rising)
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:37 AM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

@TeaPainUSA:

The far-right was so busy believin' someone was gonna take their guns, they missed it when someone took their country.
posted by jgirl at 7:38 AM on October 19, 2017 [54 favorites]

Raw Story Georgia GOP governor hopeful holds ‘bump stock’ giveaway to spite ‘liberals and Hollywood elites’

Michael Williams knows that some people might feel he’s being insensitive by giving away one of the devices less than a month after 59 people were killed and hundreds more injured when Paddock opened fire on a country music concert from his hotel room.

However, Williams said that he believes that bump stocks are being unfairly vilified and that attempts to regulate them would be an infringement on the rights of gun owners.

Right up there with freedom means you have to put up with a mass murder shooting now and then.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:41 AM on October 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

The brewery and Tall Paul's (local bar) both had that tickets-for-beer policy, but the nazis thwarted the effort to grab all the tickets by holding on to them and not letting UF give them out at the box office. They're going to give them out today themselves... somehow (that seems like a fantastic way to gin up many small skirmishes). So last night Cameron whateverhisname is, the Spencer lackey that does the bookings for these things, shows up at Tall Paul's with two or three of the tickets and tries to trade them for beer. Tall Paul's can't verify the tickets are legit because of course the nazis haven't disseminated the tickets, so they don't give him free beer. He proceeds to kick up a snotty fuss about it and they bounce him, whereupon he wails on Twitter and threatens to sue the bar for breach of contract.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:45 AM on October 19, 2017 [48 favorites]

These. Fucking. People.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:51 AM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

I missed some of the steps in Trump's latest dance move: President Trump Pivots On Bipartisan Health Care Bill (NPR, Oct. 18, 2017) -- President Trump said he supports a bipartisan effort that would effectively shore up the Affordable Care Act. But he's also distanced himself from it. What's behind the complicated politics at play?

They call it a pivot, I call it a Texas sidestep ...
"What did he say?"
"Same as usual, not a damn thing."
posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

this was Wisconsin’s first major election that required voters—even those who were already registered—to present a current driver’s license, passport, or state or military ID to cast a ballot. Anthony couldn’t, and so she wasn’t able to vote.

the mere fact that people like you and us here _exist_ and refuse to cower subserviently pisses them off.

Tying those two thoughts together - I might have told this here some time ago:
I did precinct work 2 - 3x a couple years ago in my mixed, but heavily trumpistan Detroit 'burb. MI had just instituted a voter ID law (tho IIRC there is a complicated exception for people to sign a separate form or ballot stating they are not offering ID).

One real aggressive, antagonistic control freak type man (you know the type, especially you women), an obvious right-winger, tried to engage me at the check-in table in a discussion about how everyone should have to show ID. RIght? RIGHT? RIIIGHT?

He even came back to the table after he'd voted to continue badgering me, a poll worker, who's supposed to be there in a nonpartisan capacity. Cos it so irritated him that this WOMAN would not tell him he is CORRECT, and agree that all Those People want to cheat.

I will give you half of every dollar I make forever if you can prove to me that creep voted for anyone other than Agolf Twitler last November.
posted by NorthernLite at 7:53 AM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

It's not about processes. It's about organized power. It's about who owns what. It's about who can convince whom of what, not about what's true or what's right. This is the distinction between left and liberal: liberal solutions involve funding fair processes — about trying to patch up the sandbox so we can go back to pretending reason rules — while left solutions are about acknowledging that the sandbox is impossible ...

This isn't untrue—there are definitely times and circumstances that demand an emphasis on organized power over "processes"—but the suggestion that "liberals" somehow don't get this, when, in fact, any liberal, or anyone who isn't an anarchist, who's thought about it for more than a few minutes knows that the effectiveness of any of these "processes" is fundamentally grounded in the organized and legitimate power of the state, smacks more of Harry Callahan busting balls, than an insight into the distinction between leftism and liberalism.

Which, I mean, I like the Dirty Harry movies, but ...

Meanwhile, in today's Dept. of Looking-For-Rays-Of-Sunshine, sperm-damaging amounts of lead have been reported in Alex Jones' dietary supplements.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

whereupon he wails on Twitter and threatens to sue the bar for breach of contract.

For which his damages would be a whopping $5 or whatever the beer is worth. What a child.

They're going to give them out today themselves... somehow

I hope there is a line of thousands of UF students, faculty, and staff (especially white ones), drowning out the nazis who actually want tickets. A human denial of service attack on the ticket queue.
posted by jedicus at 7:55 AM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Raw Story Georgia GOP governor hopeful holds ‘bump stock’ giveaway to spite ‘liberals and Hollywood elites’

i wonder how Racist Piece-of-Shit GOP Candidate #13456 would feel about redneck revolt and the huey p newton gun club having bumpstocks?
posted by entropicamericana at 7:57 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

>I hope there is a line of thousands of UF students, faculty, and staff (especially white ones), drowning out the nazis who actually want tickets. A human denial of service attack on the ticket queue.

...And then after someone gets their ticket, they immediately rip it up. I'd suggest ritually burning them, but that is a recipe for disaster.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 7:58 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

My daughter attends UF and lives just off campus. Apparently Gainesville is like a police state even though Spencer's circle jerk is happening at the far west side of everything on campus and essentially in no man's land. She told me that she's heard from a few jewish friends who are scared to be on campus today.
posted by photoslob at 7:59 AM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

No, you take the tickets and go get your free beer, man.
posted by emjaybee at 8:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

BTW - the Tampa Bay Times is covering the Spencer circle jerk live
posted by photoslob at 8:02 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Uranium deal tweet linked to F&F
"Russia sent millions to Clinton Foundation"

Lord knows I don't want to spread a right wing narrative that I don't believe, but I think folks should know that this is a huge story in the right wing media-sphere right now.

John Solomon, the author of this piece, is a right wing tool, but The Hill is a legit news source with standards I think, and the story seems to be based on fact, even if spun hard. The right wing has been using this "uranium deal" story since the campaign to say "I know you are but what am I?" whenever Trump's Russia connections come up.

Personally, I don't doubt that Putin tried to bribe Hillary Clinton, possibly thinking he could do so with Clinton Foundation donations. Based on how hard she was on Putin and how hard he worked to prevent her election, I don't think he succeeded. But anyway that allegation is a part of this story, which does look quite a bit more worrying in retrospect, and in light of these new revelations of corruption on the Russian side.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:02 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Florida also gave Spencer unilateral control over which reporters would be allowed to cover his speech. Because “free speech” for white supremacists apparently means allowing them to use the machinery of the state to impose prior restraints on non-aligned news organizations.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:06 AM on October 19, 2017 [68 favorites]

So is University of Florida run by shitty right wing nutjobs, or just people so intimidated by the Nazis that they're giving them everything they want?
posted by sotonohito at 8:16 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Williams claims that the bump stocks Stephen Paddock used actually prevented more deaths in the Las Vegas mass shooting “due to its inconsistency, inaccuracy, and lack of control.”

I keep seeing this argument and it's so absurd. "Why would we ban these when all you can do with them is indiscriminately spray bullets everywhere?" Sounds like a perfect reason to me.
posted by Turd Ferguson at 8:17 AM on October 19, 2017 [40 favorites]

But anyway that allegation is a part of this story

Just a couple more thoughts... It requires some double-think to condemn Clinton for allowing deals with Russia while waving off concerns about Trump's deals with Russia... But consistency has never been the strong suit of Trump or his supporters.

I do have to wonder, though, whether just associating Russia with the hated Hillary Clinton will undermine the "Russia is our friend" narrative which was previously spreading on the right! I hope so. Though now of course it is "Nothing Trump has done with Russia is as bad was what Hillary did! That's treason! Lock her up!"

I read somewhere that Trump getting elected has been tricky for Putin domestically. He wants to take credit for this great victory, getting a friendly president elected in the US, while still being able to play off the US as this threat from which only he can protect the Russian people. Putin's followers are also pretty good at double-think, apparently.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:18 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

So is University of Florida run by shitty right wing nutjobs, or just people so intimidated by the Nazis that they're giving them everything they want?

It's a state university. They were going to be sued if Nazi dude couldn't rent space there. Being a Nazi (STILL) isn't illegal in the US, nor is espousing Nazi views, as long as you don't say outright that you're going to kill people.

Do I like it? No. But that's the reality.
posted by cooker girl at 8:25 AM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

So is University of Florida run by shitty right wing nutjobs, or just people so intimidated by the Nazis that they're giving them everything they want?

It's a problem at state-owned universities everywhere in the US. A side-effect of the First Amendment-as-presently-interpreted is that state-owned universities have to allow basically anyone who wants to on campus to speak. At most they can impose the same reasonable time/place/manner restrictions on nazis (or religious extremists or whatever) as they do anyone else. But they can't forbid them from renting space solely because of what they're going to say, short of something like obscenity or actively advocating committing a crime.

Personally I think it's bullshit. By the point that a university (and a state) has to roll out the fucking National Guard because of the risk of violence, I'd say the balance has tipped in favor of giving the university the freedom to say "nope, it's not worth the risk of violence and the certainty of disruption to the school's educational mission."

As Thomas Jefferson wrote (albeit in a very different context): "To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."
posted by jedicus at 8:30 AM on October 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

> Being a Nazi (STILL) isn't illegal in the US, nor is espousing Nazi views, as long as you don't say outright that you're going to kill people.

I could have sworn I had to affirm on every US visa application and residency forms and citizenship paperwork that I was not now, nor had ever been, a member of the Nazi party ...?

So what you're saying is homegrown Nazis are fine but foreign imports are right out? (Somehow I hadn't thought of those questions as a protectionist measure.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

So is University of Florida run by shitty right wing nutjobs, or just people so intimidated by the Nazis that they're giving them everything they want?

It's a state university. State entities are not allowed to limit free speech per the First Amendment to the US Constitution and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. They can and did previously postpone this event because it was too soon after Charlottesville. But by law they can't ban him from speaking.

Put another way, the university is being exploited by a white supremacist.

Spencer has threatened to sue a number of state universities who have refused to offer him a venue, including the University of Florida this past August. His lawyer is currently suing Michigan State. If any of those were to go to trial, he'd almost certainly win. There is not a doubt in my mind that's what he wants. He'd probably *love* to wrap himself in an American flag and declare himself a victorious Free Speech Warrior. A federal judge reversed Auburn University's (in Alabama) decision to prevent him from speaking back in April. First Amendment grounds.

As long as he doesn't incite a riot or call for mass violence and people to be murdered, he's protected by federal law.
posted by zarq at 8:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT WASHINGTON POST

Northam owns stocks in Dominion, other companies with extensive interests in Virginia

Northam and his Republican opponent in the race, Ed Gillespie, have had extensive financial or business relationships with companies active in Virginia, raising questions about how those ties could influence their governance of a state known for unusually lax ethics laws.

SO WHY IS NORTHAM THE ONLY ONE IN THE FUCKING HEADLINE YOU #FUCKINGMORONS
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:34 AM on October 19, 2017 [94 favorites]

Personally I think it's bullshit. By the point that a university (and a state) has to roll out the fucking National Guard because of the risk of violence, I'd say the balance has tipped in favor of giving the university the freedom to say "nope, it's not worth the risk of violence and the certainty of disruption to the school's educational mission."

It's reportedly costing them $500,000 to provide security. The cost of a year's tuition for 78 state-resident undergraduate students. Complete insanity.
posted by zarq at 8:34 AM on October 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

Granting him a legally mandated platform is not the same as giving him total control of press access. Florida could have conditioned his event on allowing press coverage just like they did on the later date.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:34 AM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

As long as he doesn't incite a riot or call for mass violence and people to be murdered

He's a Nazi who promotes ethnic cleansing, in those specific words.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:35 AM on October 19, 2017 [48 favorites]

As long as he doesn't incite a riot or call for mass violence and people to be murdered, he's protected by federal law.

Ok, so then after his speeches incite riots and mass violence, other universities can refuse to let him come to their campuses, no?
posted by Melismata at 8:35 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

They posted on Daily Stormer advising people to cover their tats and dress down and look placid in order to get around the umptythousand cops the governor called out and get a ticket. And then fun ideas for what to do after the show, like tikitorchflashmob in front of Starbucks because it's "Jewish coffee." Or protest in favor of stuff, like "if there are statues of historically great white men (there are)." (ACTually, no, Gainesville took down our Johnny Reb. ACTually.)

UF is desperately trying to pretend this is all fine and everyone should go about their day as usual--but avoid doing anything uncitizenlike like protest the white supremacist circus going on in town. Meanwhile, all no-bennies staff who work in the area are missing a day of work they won't be paid for because they've closed every building next to the shindig. The Hilton across the street is entirely reserved for police from out of town. Whole parking lot full of cop cars last night. Surreal.

Cost for security for this is now up to $600,000. And that's gown; no telling what the cost will be to the town if they are here in any numbers. They lead charmed lives: every few months they descend on whatever random city and the city has to throw them a big glitzy militaristic debutante ball for which they do not pay a dime. Trump must be mad jealous. He wasted his youth boning his way around NYC and getting into a gossip rag now and then when he could've been leading nazi rallies.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:37 AM on October 19, 2017 [32 favorites]

Sorry, Michigan: Republican fight against municipal broadband heats up in Michigan -- Michigan bill says no "federal, state, or local funds" can pay for broadband. (Jon Brodkin for Ars Technica, Oct. 18, 2017)

Michigan Rep. Michele Hoitenga, a Republican from Manton, last week submitted a bill that says cities and towns "shall not use any federal, state, or local funds or loans to pay for the cost of providing qualified Internet service."

Hoitenga is the chair of the Michigan House's Communications and Technology committee, which will consider the bill. The bill may be a reaction to the government in Holland, Michigan, recently deciding to offer fiber Internet service and let any ISP offer service over the municipal network by buying wholesale access. Hoitenga incorrectly claimed that the municipality had 37 providers, when "only three residential ISPs [cover] more than half the town, and two of those offer DSL instead of a modern technology like cable or fiber." (The source referenced double-counts service providers who offer business and residential services.)

And no small surprise, Telecommunications Association of Michigan PAC and AT&T Michigan both donated to her, $3k and $1.5k respectively. That's a low price to reduce local competition.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:37 AM on October 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

I could have sworn I had to affirm on every US visa application and residency forms and citizenship paperwork that I was not now, nor had ever been, a member of the Nazi party ...?

So what you're saying is homegrown Nazis are fine but foreign imports are right out? (Somehow I hadn't thought of those questions as a protectionist measure.)

Yeah, pretty much.

3. Nazi Party Affiliation

Applicants who were affiliated with the Nazi government of Germany or any government occupied by or allied with the Nazi government of Germany, either directly or indirectly, are ineligible for admission into the United States and permanently barred from naturalization. [21] The applicant is responsible for providing any evidence or documentation to support a claim that he or she is not ineligible for naturalization based on involvement in the Nazi Party.

I never knew this. Interesting. In that WTF kind of way.
posted by cooker girl at 8:37 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

It's reportedly costing them $500,000 to provide security. The cost of a year's tuition for 78 state-resident undergraduate students. Complete insanity.

Why not simply charge the speaker or his financial backers for the cost involved due to their inflammatory speech?
posted by leotrotsky at 8:38 AM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

He's a Nazi who promotes ethnic cleansing, in those specific words.

I'm not a first amendment lawyer, and I'm certainly not going to defend Richard Fucking Spencer. But I'm guessing that he has lawyers who can twist the meanings of his dogwhistles to a court so they don't sound like he's violating the law.
posted by zarq at 8:39 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

North Carolina Republicans simply don’t believe that Democrats have any legitimate say in governance.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:39 AM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

And then fun ideas for what to do after the show, like tikitorchflashmob in front of Starbucks because it's "Jewish coffee."

I'm sure I'll regret asking this, but... what?
posted by zarq at 8:40 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

So is University of Florida run by shitty right wing nutjobs, or just people so intimidated by the Nazis that they're giving them everything they want?

You know, I don't really know how to answer this because it's truly an unfair question. Spencer and his frog friends have discovered they can game the system by taking advantage of the first amendment and a liberal democracy's tolerance of all speech. He threatened to sue the university in federal court and I believe he and his deep-pocketed backers have done that in the past. Do I wish the university and president Fuchs denied him a place to speak? Of course, but someone at the state level in Tallahassee did the cynical math and determined that it was cheaper to let Spencer speak than to fight him in court.

Like I mentioned, my daughter attends UF, my wife and I graduated from UF and we have numerous friends who work at the university. None of us support Spencer and if anything we'd punch him in the face if we saw him on the street. There's certainly a number of questions that need to be asked about preventing Spencer's bullshit in the future but asking if a state university is run by a bunch of "shitty right wing nutjobs" is just kicking the people who have to live through Spencer being in Gainesville today.
posted by photoslob at 8:41 AM on October 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

North Carolina Republicans simply don’t believe that Democrats have any legitimate say in governance.

Why is it that North Carolina Republicans are unusually insane?

Are they fighting a rear guard action against turning into a bluer shade of purple, like Virginia?
posted by leotrotsky at 8:42 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The arc of the universe does not bend towards justice C'mon now, Sonohito, let us not talk smack about the universe, and project that we know the arc of it.

I remember one of my favorite writers stating, "When the shaman stands on the edge of the universe they find a supreme indifference."

We are the difference, and we can go with the outward flow of the expanding universe, and create our own compassionate, forward motion with it.

That view is fatalistic to the extreme, but time is a sticky flow, and it takes effort to bend it.
posted by Oyéah at 8:45 AM on October 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

"I Hate Illinois Nazis North Carolina Republicans"
posted by kirkaracha at 8:47 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Zarq, I have absolutely no idea what that means to them, but what it means to me is that today at long last I'm going to use my Starbucks giftcard.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:47 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Why not simply charge the speaker or his financial backers for the cost involved due to their inflammatory speech?

This is a good question. Does the school always provide security for speakers?
posted by graventy at 8:48 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I mean, Starbucks serves kosher and non-kosher food. Which means some Orthodox Jews won't even buy anything from them out of an assumption that the machines used to make stuff are "contaminated" by non-kosher edibles. This is kind of a big deal to some Jews. There are articles online that explain what is and isn't kosher to eat at the average Starbucks. What's approved by rabbinic kashrut councils. Guides to which ones serve what foods. Heck, there's even a facebook group.
posted by zarq at 8:48 AM on October 19, 2017

"Jewish coffee." Nah man, everyone knows Starbucks is Catholic coffee.
posted by Oyéah at 8:48 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm sure I'll regret asking this, but... what?

One of the founders was Jewish.
posted by Fleebnork at 8:51 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

That view is fatalistic to the extreme, but time is a sticky flow, and it takes effort to bend it.

If anything, progressivism is sisyphean but each time you get to start a little further up the hill.
posted by Talez at 8:52 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Why not simply charge the speaker or his financial backers for the cost involved due to their inflammatory speech?

Not a good precedent. Last year Republican state legislatures looking to shut down Black Lives Matter protests were proposing bills to make protestors pay for the cost of policing.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Why not simply charge the speaker or his financial backers for the cost involved due to their inflammatory speech?

Associated Press: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government, in this case a public university, cannot charge speakers for security costs.

I don't know what case they're referring to.
posted by zarq at 8:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

My questioning the right wing-ism of U of Florida wasn't related to letting Spencer speak, but letting him have total control over tickets and the press. Most especially letting him have total control over the press.

Sure, sure, the university is obligated to let him speak. But come on, they aren't obligated to let him decide which press gets to cover his speaking.

Who made that decision and why?
posted by sotonohito at 8:56 AM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

They posted on Daily Stormer advising people to cover their tats and dress down and look placid in order to get around the umptythousand cops the governor called out and get a ticket.

How are the cops going to know who to protect/whose criminal behavior to ignore if they can't see your swastika tat?
posted by indubitable at 8:58 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Uranium one are the folks that take their sludge to Blanding Utah for processing. Last year one of their liquid filled trucks, spilled its contents between Gillette and Blanding, the truck arriving dry.
posted by Oyéah at 9:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Hill is a legit news source with standards I think

Leaving aside the substance of any actual rumors, but The Hill quit being a legit news source with standards awhile ago. They are now little more than a DC-based gossip rag, and they'll hand out column space to anyone willing to slap words together. In my line of work, placing op-eds or stories in The Hill is the last-ditch option after every legitimate reporter and outlet has turned us down and we're running down the clock on having something to point to with our bosses' names on it.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 9:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [32 favorites]

Sure, sure, the university is obligated to let him speak. But come on, they aren't obligated to let him decide which press gets to cover his speaking.

Controlling audience and press access may also be a free speech issue. The private entity that rents space from them for an event could do it. But I suspect the University would not be able to.
posted by zarq at 9:05 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Northam and his Republican opponent in the race, Ed Gillespie, have had extensive financial or business relationships with companies active in Virginia..."

SO WHY IS NORTHAM THE ONLY ONE IN THE FUCKING HEADLINE YOU #FUCKINGMORONS

Because the difference in scope is pretty significant. You should be thanking them for that early graf equivalence given what comes a lot later about Gillespie:

Gillespie has mutual funds and partnership interests in three investment funds but no stock holdings, according to his campaign disclosure form.

You wanna be mad at folks, you should be mad at VA for our weak-sauce ethics restrictions or Northam for his stupid choice of holdings and shitty (at best) optics. I think he's okay and his history points to him being at bare minimum no worse that McAuliffe has turned out to be. But if this is newsworthy - and let's not pretend we wouldn't be drooling over this if it was about Gillespie - he's the one who deserves the focus.
posted by phearlez at 9:06 AM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

Sure, sure, the university is obligated to let him speak. But come on, they aren't obligated to let him decide which press gets to cover his speaking.

I've looked and not seen it reported anywhere that Spencer is determining who covers the event. My guess is that law enforcement has created some sort of press pool situation for Spencer's speech.
posted by photoslob at 9:07 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

standards awhile ago. They are now little more than a DC-based gossip rag, and they'll hand out column space to anyone willing to slap words together.

I mean columns and op eds are whatever. I have low expectations. Look what the Wall Street Journal runs. And I'm not put off by "gossip rag" either -- people say the same about Politico, but they have had some important stories this year.

I'm trying to say that although I don't trust John Soloman farther than I can throw him, I don't think The Hill would have published that piece without some solid sourcing and editorial oversight. They aren't Instapundit or Zero Hedge or whatever. Or can you give an example of something they've published as fact which turned out to be non-fact?
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:07 AM on October 19, 2017

One of the founders was Jewish.

Ah. Thanks.
posted by zarq at 9:08 AM on October 19, 2017

I've looked and not seen it reported anywhere that Spencer is determining who covers the event.

Guardian: White nationalist to control which journalists cover Florida 'free speech' event

“They’ve rented the facility. It’s their event. It’s not our event,” university spokeswoman Janine Sikes said on Wednesday. “It’s their event, so that’s why they can have whomever they want.” [...]

Trying to make a first amendment case for controlling media credentialing would be a much more difficult battle, LoMonte said. “I don’t think you have a first amendment right to be covered by the media in the way that you choose,” he said. “I can’t come up with a way that’s a viable first amendment claim.”

Journalists who requested a credential to cover Thursday’s event were told by the university in an email: “All media credentialing decisions are made by [Spencer’s National Policy Institute].”
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:15 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Here's a Daily Kos profile of John Solomon and their take on that Uranium One piece.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:18 AM on October 19, 2017

Guardian: White nationalist to control which journalists cover Florida 'free speech' event

This pisses me off.
posted by photoslob at 9:19 AM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

I could have sworn I had to affirm on every US visa application and residency forms and citizenship paperwork that I was not now, nor had ever been, a member of the Nazi party ...?

Anecdotal data point: a family member needed to renew her border stuff this past weekend, and there's a new form. The new form no longer asks if you are/were a Nazi. There are a shitload of new questions, two pages in teeny-tiny font, so be prepared. And bring your reading glasses, unlike the elderly Italian gentleman next to us who hadn't brought his, and was stuck.

There are a LOT of new questions. It's gonna take a while. That's probably the intent.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:21 AM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

From The Hill:

George W. Bush: 'Bigotry seems emboldened' in US
posted by jgirl at 9:22 AM on October 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

Twain Device: "Powerful SC GOP consultant Richard Quinn, 4 others indicted"

We note that SC governor Henry McMaster is extremely closely associated with Quinn, and that the next SC governor election is...2018.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:25 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

“They’ve rented the facility. It’s their event. It’s not our event,” university spokeswoman Janine Sikes said on Wednesday. “It’s their event, so that’s why they can have whomever they want.”

UofF is a public school, I wonder if they can really rent their facilities under these terms.
posted by rhizome at 9:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

George W. Bush: 'Bigotry seems emboldened' in US

Black pot calls kettle black?
posted by Talez at 9:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

From the "1 in 3 Ain't Bad" Department:

Time: Father of Soldier Killed in Niger: Trump Was Respectful When He Called Me

Not all Gold Star families are upset with President Donald Trump. [that's what they call damning with faint praise]

Arnold Wright said he had no qualms about the fact that Trump's phone call came nearly two weeks after his son's death was announced. [...] "The tone was great," Wright said. "His comments were appropriate."
When pressed if Trump had said something similar to him, Wright said twice that Trump did not, adding that he didn't see anything problematic about it anyway. "I'll say it: my son knew what he signed up for."

1) Can you imagine a factor that might possibly have differentiated Dustin Wright from La David Johnson in Trump's eyes?

2) Arnold Wright won't say whether he voted for Trump but it's hard not to see him internalizing Trumpism in order to rationalize and justify the death of his son, and that shit makes me sad in more ways than one.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [38 favorites]

I don't care whether Trump is occasionally thought to be decent, it's whether he's holding himself to the same standard under which he criticizes others.

Moreover, what % of families did Obama call and what % has Trump?
posted by rhizome at 9:35 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

And then fun ideas for what to do after the show, like tikitorchflashmob in front of Starbucks because it's "Jewish coffee."

On the very unlikely chance it involves Starbucks serving Authentic Nachle Israeli Black Coffee with Cardamom then I highly recommend it!

Admittedly being a bit of a wuss I blend it at about a 1:20 ratio with Monsooned Malabar to avoid hyper-caffeination.
posted by Buntix at 9:36 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

George W. Bush: 'Bigotry seems emboldened' in US

Matty Glesias:

This is a nice speech, but the reality is W was in Virginia fundraising for Ed Gillespie last week.

Tory men and Trumpy measures.

posted by zombieflanders at 9:39 AM on October 19, 2017 [39 favorites]

How a rich city spent $283K fighting a gigantic hedge

The Asylum tribute to Pacific Rim 2.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 9:40 AM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Ahh yes. Just another fall morning where the President of the US decides to accuse a federal agency of treason on a social media platform.

I'm still reeling from this -- in the middle of reeling from all the other things he's said and done in the past however many months.

The President of the United States of America publicly accused part of the nation's security apparatus of treason. This is part of the public record. This is will be part of the official government records of the United States.

How has this not triggered a huge crisis? Do his words mean anything? If they don't mean anything, hasn't our nation been effectively decapitated? If the media and the other branches of the government ignore this, how can this mean anything other than that the United States does not currently have a head of state?

Jesus, I feel like Frank "Grimey" Grimes from the famous episode of the Simpsons: How are so many people not seeing this? Why doesn't it matter? Where are the repercussions?
posted by lord_wolf at 9:41 AM on October 19, 2017 [65 favorites]

Moreover, what % of families did Obama call and what % has Trump?

This is not really a good metric. Obama presided over several years of intense fighting in Iraq and the surge in Afghanistan. More than 2500 US soldiers died. The president’s time could not have been and should not have been spent calling each loss personally. He’s not an army grief officer, and that’s why we have those officers, to delegate those responsibilities to trained representatives of the US government.

Trump has lost 20 soldiers in 9 months, mostly in noncombat incidents. He didn’t call all of those, but he shouldn’t have to and we shouldn’t want him to. It’s because he doesn’t understand what the military is or does or how it works, and because he said another stupid thing thinking it would somehow give him more “hate Obama points” that were even talking about this. He poisons everything, even honoring military deaths.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:43 AM on October 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

Jesus, I feel like Frank "Grimey" Grimes from the famous episode of the Simpsons: How are so many people not seeing this? Why doesn't it matter? Where are the repercussions?

Because the only people who can do anything about it are sitting with their backs to the controversy, fingers in ears, going "LALALALALA CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING HE'S SAYING!"
posted by Talez at 9:44 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

also, tax cuts
posted by entropicamericana at 9:45 AM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

“They’ve rented the facility. It’s their event. It’s not our event,” university spokeswoman Janine Sikes said on Wednesday. “It’s their event, so that’s why they can have whomever they want.”

UofF is a public school, I wonder if they can really rent their facilities under these terms.

I loathe these nazis as much as everyone else here, but - what other possible terms would you expect anyone to rent a space under? Wouldn't every one of us, if we rented an auditorium from someone, expect that we'd be the ones who decides who gets into the seats? If we paid to put on our own production on a stage we'd expect that we decide who gets all the tickets and which press outlets to invite, wouldn't we? If the local democratic party rented that space for a rally we wouldn't think it was reasonable for the university to feel free to invite a few random republicans in, no?

It seems egregious because it's nazi scum gaming the system to get access we wish we could deny them, but it's them that's odd and gross, not the policy as a standard.
posted by phearlez at 9:48 AM on October 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Just the president accusing the FBI of conspiring with the Russians against him.

I'm very interested to someday hear what happened behind the scenes in the Mueller investigation these past couple weeks. We've had Trump going on the attack against the FBI and Comey again, a renewed round of "Pence would be worse" stories and talk around the web (not just the New Yorker piece which I think was coincidental timing, but stuff like Bannon saying the Kochs own Pence), there was that thing where Trump was wanting to talk to Mueller like an idiot to clear things up - it feels like something shifted behind the scenes to spook the Trump camp.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Wouldn't every one of us, if we rented an auditorium from someone, expect that we'd be the ones who decides who gets into the seats?

If I was selling tickets, sure, but if it's a free event I would think they have to take whoever shows up. Perhaps a more pointed example: could they exclude black people?
posted by rhizome at 10:01 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

There are a LOT of new questions. It's gonna take a while. That's probably the intent.

The first thing that comes to mind are those old southern voting rights tests.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:04 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

If I was selling tickets, sure, but if it's a free event I would think they have to take whoever shows up. Perhaps a more pointed example: could they exclude black people?

They're public events so they can't exclude black people but they can exclude whichever individuals they want in order to control their message. So for instance you can instruct security to keep out all individuals with a black lives matter t-shirt on but not all black people.
posted by Talez at 10:05 AM on October 19, 2017

indubitable: How are the cops going to know who to protect/whose criminal behavior to ignore if they can't see your swastika tat?

Um, skin color? That worked in Charlottesville on a few occasions. After all, the Governor came down hard on wanting those attackers arrested, but *gasp* said nothing that I've seen about police inaction.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:05 AM on October 19, 2017

how can this mean anything other than that the United States does not currently have a head of state?

Things I have thought in full seriousness in the last month: “We’re going to have to get ready now for when the federal government just doesn’t show up.”
To wit, I’m considering organizing a mutual aid, check-in system for my building in advance of whatever the next disaster in.
posted by The Whelk at 10:05 AM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

It seems egregious because it's nazi scum gaming the system to get access we wish we could deny them, but it's them that's odd and gross, not the policy as a standard.

So nazis are masking up right now, local synagogues are under threat. If your personal dedication to the policy of free speech is being used by people who would happily dismantle it in order to terrorize people, maybe your policy is stupid.
posted by indubitable at 10:07 AM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Do his words mean anything? If they don't mean anything, hasn't our nation been effectively decapitated? If the media and the other branches of the government ignore this, how can this mean anything other than that the United States does not currently have a head of state?

That is kind of what's going on, right? Many people in the government and media are just kind of ignoring him and lying low and waiting until he goes away (because they are cowards).
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:08 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

T.D. Strange: Guardian: White nationalist to control which journalists cover Florida 'free speech' event

“They’ve rented the facility. It’s their event. It’s not our event,” university spokeswoman Janine Sikes said on Wednesday. “It’s their event, so that’s why they can have whomever they want.”

Maybe it's time to change that policy, you know, for the greater good. There's free speech, and the freedom to suppress speech, which I don't think is a thing.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:08 AM on October 19, 2017

Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but apparently there is (surprise) a bit of a harassment-of-women and rape apologia problem with "leftist" folks associated with the Chapo podcast. SL twitter thread here, but tl;dr:

- there is an associated podcast called (I can't fucking believe this) "cum town" featuring a dude who seems to enjoy making "ironic" rape jokes, in addition to doing all the usual "we don't know all the facts" and attacking rape victims
- this twitter user calls them out, chapo and cum town (jesus FUCKING christ) fans and associates harass her for going on three days now I think, with involvement from people on the podcasts themselves
- a bunch of women apparently have messaged her to confirm that they've experienced in person harassment at events associated with the NYC DSA when they tried to call this stuff out
- and now I'm just exhausted, because the pattern is always the same

I know there are people on MeFi heavily involved with the NYC DSA. I'd love to hear what they have to say about this, but I gotta say, the culture doesn't seem awesome.

I'm so fucking tired.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:14 AM on October 19, 2017 [55 favorites]

Sen. Alexander says he has 10 GOP co-sponsors for Alexander-Murray (including Graham and Cassidy, but not Heller). That gets him to 60 votes if all the Democrats are on board. We've swung back to Trump seemingly supporting it, though he keeps reversing himself on that.

Which all leads to the question of what the hell Paul Ryan does if the Senate passes this and dumps it on his desk.

itshappening.gif?
posted by zachlipton at 10:21 AM on October 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

Gainesville Sun just posted a video of what looks to be a presser from inside the auditorium. a spotlit nattily dressed Spencer insisting he's there for dialogue and not trying to limit to only nazi press. Outside the cops just detained some guy because he had a gun. He claimed to be private security for Fox News. I'm getting this stuff from various facebook live feeds.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:36 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

RE: Chapo misogyny problem—

There was also a recent 'joke' tweet in which two of the Chapo dudes and Josh Androsky, co-chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA, posed next to Bill Cosby's Hollywood star with the caption "hey libs try taking THIS statue down'. Obviously they were trying for irony, but it was a terrible look for these supposed lefties (white hipster dudebros, the lot of them) to be making light of rape, especially in the immediate wake of the Weinstein allegations and subsequent "Me too" social media movement. (Related thread from the Chapo Trap House subreddit.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:36 AM on October 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but apparently there is (surprise) a bit of a harassment-of-women and rape apologia problem with "leftist" folks associated with the Chapo podcast. SL twitter thread here, but tl;dr:

Teal deer, indeed.

Of course, every time you express any "this gives me a bad vibe, it's a white straight dude-led leftist project that is moderately bad about gender and has very few women involved, one of whom hates feminism" feelings about CTH, people are all "well, you can't expect them to be perfect". And then it turns out that the problem isn't that they're "not perfect", which would be fine, but that they actively tolerate/encourage gross rape apologists and creepers.

I've never felt that great about CTH and have said as much, because every time I've encountered that kind of leftist white dude he's actually been kind of an asshole or else an asshole-apologist.

The moral of this story seems to be two-fold:

1. It's not necessarily worth getting involved with projects that are led by straight white men and have very little participation from women, or with participation by women who do a lot of disingenuous "I don't dislike feminism, just Every Feminist Who Exists" style stuff.

2. Don't be so quick to dismiss women's objections to the "identity politics keeps us from winning, gender was not relevant to the election, we need to focus on class" thing. That kind of argument is a total red flag, and anyone who advances it is either naive/unfamiliar with history or actively disingenuous.
posted by Frowner at 10:37 AM on October 19, 2017 [81 favorites]

Yeah I know some leftist people are all about the Chapo guys but they seem really really really gross and I'm very glad I never gave into the maybe I should check that out impulse I had.
posted by yellowbinder at 10:37 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

I know there are people on MeFi heavily involved with the NYC DSA. I'd love to hear what they have to say about this, but I gotta say, the culture doesn't seem awesome.

My understanding is that Chapo really isn't that involved with the New York DSA, who are more about the work of political organizing than the endless self-aggrandizement that is Chapo.
posted by mightygodking at 10:39 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

> > how can this mean anything other than that the United States does not currently have a head of state?

> Things I have thought in full seriousness in the last month: “We’re going to have to get ready now for when the federal government just doesn’t show up.”


It's not even so much the absence of a real head of state/executive branch that will be the real issue (as Belgium previouslied), but that the Trumpétomanes are acting as a fifth column to sabotage and incapacitate the civil services and bits of government that actually do useful stuff.

It won't even be possible to just spin them up again when/if he's gone as they'll be losing people and domain knowledge that will take years to rebuild.
posted by Buntix at 10:39 AM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

the endless self-aggrandizement that is Chapo.

They are very awesome, hadn't you heard them say so?
posted by Chrysostom at 10:41 AM on October 19, 2017

Atom Eyes: "There was also a recent 'joke' tweet in which two of the Chapo dudes and Josh Androsky, co-chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA, posed next to Bill Cosby's Hollywood star with the caption "hey libs try taking THIS statue down'. "

20 minutes, 2 guys, jackhammer.
posted by Mitheral at 10:42 AM on October 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

There was also a recent 'joke' tweet

If we've learned anything from the rise of the alt-right, it's that they're never just "jokes." Applies equally to the alt-left.

My understanding is that Chapo really isn't that involved with the New York DSA, who are more about the work of political organizing than the endless self-aggrandizement that is Chapo

The actual thread I linked seems to contradict this no-true-scotsman-lite assessment.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:46 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

We have a brand new national harassment policy for chapters and now is an excellent time to try it out. We’ve drummed out people before for bad behavior.
posted by The Whelk at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2017 [33 favorites]

I feel like I say this every fifth election thread, but it bears repeating:

When I first heard about Chapo Trap House, I saw the name and saw that the staff was all white guys, and I moved on with my life. (That said, James Adomian's Gorka is a goddamn treasure.)
posted by pxe2000 at 10:49 AM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

I swear.

More & more, I find myself thinking not just "what groups are out there that I can join to start advocating for change?" & instead "what groups are out there run & peopled by women & people of color that I can join to start advocating for change?"

I'm so fucking sick of hearing white dudes espousing their solutions and making their wry little jokes. We're so damned untrustworthy at this point. "Well, not all white dudes.." I don't care; it's enough; it's too many.

In my personal life, I find that all my arguments crescendo to direct quotes & "learn more" knowledge drops authored by women & PoC. They've (you've) been saying this stuff forever. It's all out there & ripe for dissemination.

Yeah, I'm a white guy & I was born on a platform with a megaphone, but all I want to do is pull others onto this dais & hand over the reins. We need to just take a backseat already. Clap hard as hell, cheer others on, share, link, tweet, show up, yeah, yeah, yeah. But stop thinking we're the ones that need to lead the way.
posted by narwhal at 10:51 AM on October 19, 2017 [60 favorites]

We have a brand new national harassment policy for chapters and now is an excellent time to try it out. We’ve drummed out people before for bad behavior.

I want you to know I am now humming "Go Whelk Go, Go Whelk Gooooo....." to the tune of that song about the Cubs.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:51 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Jesus Christ, that chapo reddit thread you linked to kinda confirms everything is flaming
hot garbage.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:52 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

...the Trumpétomanes are acting as a fifth column to sabotage and incapacitate the civil services and bits of government that actually do useful stuff.

This is what happens when you scream "Government is ALWAYS the problem" for forty years over every available wavelength without clarifying that what you really mean is "except for when and where we control it."

Eventually enough idiots take you seriously that they acquire the keys to the bus.
posted by delfin at 10:52 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Also Season Of The Bitch for your all lady, all leftist podcast needs
posted by The Whelk at 10:53 AM on October 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

how can this mean anything other than that the United States does not currently have a head of state?

Things I have thought in full seriousness in the last month: “We’re going to have to get ready now for when the federal government just doesn’t show up.”

I agree with this, but my immediate reaction is: when the government just doesn't hold up it's end of the bargain... do large segments of the population just stop paying taxes? What happens then?

I mean, I know the answer is, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!" but, like, why isn't everyone screaming about this? I'm missing something obvious.
posted by ragtag at 10:53 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

James Adomian is a goddamn treasure, full stop.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

We have a brand new national harassment policy for chapters and now is an excellent time to try it out. We’ve drummed out people before for bad behavior.
posted by The Whelk at 10:48 AM on October 19 [3 favorites −] [!]

Great. I hope you do this. Because the twitter thread specifically talks about the nyc DSA social scene, and women who have been silenced or don't feel safe speaking out, which to me seems a problem of culture (already). So I'd say you have your work cut out for you.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Okay, here's the reason I don't like that kind of sexist (and actually, also, kind of racist?) "ironic" humor as the public face of a project even if the people really, truly, in their hearts do not mean it: When people make unpleasant jokes the public face of their project* they are saying, first, that anyone who is hurt by the jokes is going to be excluded from the culture of the project, and second, that the bond between the people who remain is 'I think it's funny to joke about sexual assault'.

Even if the people making the jokes are fantastic people in their private lives - feminist, excellent partners, constantly confront sexism, work primarily in women-led projects, etc etc, by creating a group bond around 'rape jokes are funny' they are bringing together a group that is going to have lots of icky people, lots of clueless people and very few people who will counter-balance or call those people out. They're building a group that is going to produce stochastic abuse of women.

When someone who is the public face of a project does this, you know either that they have never actually considered how sexism is reproduced or they just don't care. (Or possibly that they're not politically experienced enough to be the public face of anything.) In any case, it does not build confidence.

*Some people have social groups where people tell unpleasant jokes with some understanding of complexity and it's not terrible. Even those situations are pretty tricky, though, and I've mostly know it to backfire eventually.
posted by Frowner at 10:55 AM on October 19, 2017 [69 favorites]

Here's a joke, though:

Republican-run gov't: If I were in a room with Stalin, Hitler, & Mao but I only had two bullets in my gun, I'd shoot myself twice.
posted by narwhal at 10:56 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

narwhal: "More & more, I find myself thinking not just "what groups are out there that I can join to start advocating for change?" & instead "what groups are out there run & peopled by women & people of color that I can join to start advocating for change?""

I am excited by how many women/POC are Dem candidates in the Virginia House of Delegates races. This can really effect change.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:58 AM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Why not simply charge the speaker or his financial backers for the cost involved due to their inflammatory speech?

Because I promise you this can be applied to more causes than Nazis. There are a lot of noble causes some people still find "inflammatory".
posted by corb at 11:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Even if the people making the jokes are fantastic people in their private lives

lol they never are

because if you are a fantastic person in your private life you don't fucking laugh when people tell you the jokes you make on your own large public platform bring them right back to their own rape

and if you don't know that that's what happens every time you make a fucking joke about being raped in public, you are not a person who deserves a large public platform; you are either brain dead or a sentient piece of shit
posted by schadenfrau at 11:00 AM on October 19, 2017 [63 favorites]

Anyway since I have literally all the social capital my go to now is just having an even more zero tolerance policy for this shit, I am absolutely not afraid to say “that’s not funny” and we don’t say shit like that here, not even as a joke.

I’m not in any organizer committee or place of authority but I am extremly loud and I have helped oust people before and this is not tolerable.
posted by The Whelk at 11:01 AM on October 19, 2017 [46 favorites]

(Also this is something I prefer to do in person , better success rate then online)

(Ugh this is something Comms needs to address like yesterday too,)
posted by The Whelk at 11:04 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

"Ironic" Racism/Sexism etc. really needs to be cast aside. As shown going back to the 70s with Archie Bunker, there will be a group of people that don't get the jokes are meant ironically. Then, it can be tough to tell if someone is making a joke ironically, or just kidding on the square.
posted by drezdn at 11:04 AM on October 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Crooked Media, Brian Beutler, Leaked Memo Reveals White House Wish List. The Domestic Policy Council turns out to be full of assholes too:

Policymakers in Trump’s White House argue that the U.S. should refrain from influencing curricula and “other touchier-feelier programs” at foreign institutions that receive federal funds to educate young girls—except in “muslim countries, where we need to do a check of the curricula at the schools we’re supporting to weed out jihadism.”
...
These same officials are convinced that the World Health Organization is a “corrupt, hostile bureaucracy that achieves no actual [public health] capacity in countries.”

And they hope to halve federal funding for Title X, the grant program that provides family planning and prevention services to the poor, and divert the money into programs to promote “fertility awareness” methods of birth control—popular among socially conservative contraception foes—which fail annually for a quarter of couples.

They also want to further screw over federal workers with a pay freeze and ending all pensions and retiree health benefits.
posted by zachlipton at 11:05 AM on October 19, 2017 [31 favorites]

The Chapo stuff was predictable, but seeing it laid out in such vivid detail still leaves me feeling disappointed and disgusted. I think a lot of it results from a group that fancies itself as an edgier, more radical interpretation of modern leftism using shock value to prove that they're edgier and more radical. The urge to "keep it real" when so much of the movement is defined more by what they're against (neoliberalism, the Democratic party, etc.) than what they're for. If someone doesn't like it, then they just weren't true enough to the socialist vision, with their identity-centered politics that keep them from laughing when someone makes a TOTALLY HILARIOUS rape joke, and that means they've proven themselves to be more authentic.

It's a good thing more mainstream vehicles exist for organizing the left that aren't causing this kind of harm. I hope that the Chapo crowd is marginalized within them for as long as they're doing shit like this.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:11 AM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

The NY DSA is pretty large, right? To be optimistic, one might very well have both some really shitty social circles within it and plenty of better ones, and then a bunch of people whose primary social life is not through the DSA.

At least, this is how activist circles have always seemed to me elsewhere - there are circles within circles, and some of them are toxic and some are not. Depending on exactly what you're working on, the type of people you like as friends, luck and circumstance and the exclusion measures of each social circle, you can have wildly different experiences. Like, I've had super toxic friend groups at several points, and also had really healthy friend groups - all within the broad activist milieu.
posted by Frowner at 11:12 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yep, largest chapter by far, and there are circles within circles (the Queer Caucus is still forming and it is growing) we all have to be better at identifying toxic elements, I’m more concerned about that then the werid persistent fear of infliatrators.
posted by The Whelk at 11:16 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

“Neolib” — especially in online “discourse” — has become gutted of any real content. It’s been reduced to an epithet, usually signifying contempt for the hard work of self-governance and an adolescent desire to act out a fantasy of immediate (ideological) gratification. It reminds me (oddly) of what the therapist tells Rick Sanchez in a recent episode of Rick and Morty:

I have no doubt you would be bored senseless by therapy. The same way i’m bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is: it's not an adventure. There’s no way to do it so wrong you might die. It’s just work. And the bottom line is: some people are okay going to work and some people... well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose.

Liberalism and enlightenment values are no longer considered sexy or exciting. It’s so much more “fun” to agitate from the fringe and reduce all of this hard work to moves on a theoretical chessboard, nursing the (privileged) fantasy of upending the gameboard as a solution to political problems, while failing to see that for the nihilism it is.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:19 AM on October 19, 2017 [65 favorites]

schadenfrau: "because if you are a fantastic person in your private life you don't fucking laugh when people tell you the jokes you make on your own large public platform bring them right back to their own rape"

I can't favorite this enough.

I *was* that guy. I loved regaling folks with my super-dark, edgy humor in private & I managed to parlay that knack for humor into a gig where I (essentially) did standup one night a week for a number of years.

As time went on, folks would pull me aside & tell me that a particular bit really hurt. The first few times it happened, naturally, I was defensive: "whoa, whoa, whoa- I'm so sorry. I never meant it like that!" Eventually, I realized that I just stopped telling those jokes (and jokes like them).

Now, I'm all woke & shit, so of course I'd never put my foot in my mouth (ha ha- please please don't go digging through my comment history; at best, I'm a work in progress). But the simple rule of thumb that keeps me on the right side of these issues is that if my joke could in any way, shape, or form be construed as insensitive, I leave it alone.

What blows my mind is that I'm just some dude. I have achieved, by the most generous standards, an amount of fame literally one notch above 0. How it is that these other dudes with platforms that reach thousands & more could possibly persist in telling & defending jokes like these when surely, surely they have received more feedback than I ever did, I can't even.

I am a dumb animal, but I am a learning animal. I made jokes that hurt & then people helped me to understand how they hurt (despite my ironic intentions) & then I learned to extrapolate from the harm I caused some groups to be careful not to harm any groups, to the best of my ability.

Anyone who keeps on at it, who advocates smear campaigns against folks speaking truth to their hurt, who tells you to get over it, who shrugs & says he's only joking, he (because it's probably a "he") isn't a good guy deep down.

I don't know that I'm a good guy deep down. I'm just aspiring to be a good guy, from the inside out. Fuck these hurtful people with their good intentions. As I said earlier: take a back seat & listen. You can learn a lot, especially about yourself.
posted by narwhal at 11:20 AM on October 19, 2017 [62 favorites]

What We Know About the Niger Attack That Left 4 U.S. Soldiers Dead
posted by kirkaracha at 11:25 AM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

How it is that these other dudes with platforms that reach thousands & more could possibly persist in telling & defending jokes like these when surely, surely they have received more feedback than I ever did, I can't even.

I basically ended a 30+ year friendship today because a friend reacted defensively to my attempt to very very gently point out some rape apologia he posted on FB and by trying to shift the blame onto me for misinterpreting him. He's a woke liberal black gay man, and he thought that should be enough for me to just assume he didn't mean to condone rape or call women liars. But he did, and he didn't see what was wrong with that. I am about done with men.

ETA: thank you for listening when people talked to you about it. I was stunned by how hard it was to have the conversation with my friend and how badly it went.
posted by Mavri at 11:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

They also want to further screw over federal workers with a pay freeze and ending all pensions and retiree health benefits.

Which is a feature, not a bug. They want to drive out all the experienced employees with institutional memory and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government is incapable of doing anything valuable.

The day these assholes figure out that there are federal employees throughout every agency who do environmental protection work -- not just in EPA -- I'm doomed.
posted by suelac at 11:33 AM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

“Neolib” — especially in online “discourse” — has become gutted of any real content. It’s been reduced to an epithet, usually signifying contempt for the hard work of self-governance and an adolescent desire to act out a fantasy of immediate (ideological) gratification.

I don't think this is true in any way that maps onto the real world, not least because if there's one thing you can say for socialists, they're gluttons for the hard work of self-governance. You may or may not agree with how socialist groups proceed, but they are some of the least afraid of boredom of any activists you will ever meet. Union activists tend either to be sympathetic to socialist goals or actually socialists, for instance, and holy crap does that stuff require a tolerance for fiddly work and boredom. The only anarchists I've ever met who are similar are IWWs.

Certainly there are people who are all "let's have a revolution, and if it's not neo-Syndicalist-Maoist in character, then we should overthrow everything in blood and fire", but most of those people are under about twenty-seven and they're anarchists. (Not to impugn anarchists, among whom I count myself - marxists' besetting sin is secrecy; anarchists' is foolery.)
posted by Frowner at 11:34 AM on October 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

@Mark Knoller: This evening, Pres Trump attends dinner at the Kuwaiti Embassy at which UN Refugee Agency honors Melania Trump for her humanitarian efforts.

Update: this is what the White House said, but the LA Times dug into it: As Trump moves to slash refugee admissions, U.N. refugee agency honors his wife? Um, not exactly

Responding to questions about the event, a U.N. official, who requested anonymity given the sensitive diplomatic issues involved, quickly made clear that the dinner is not in fact being sponsored by the U.N.’s refugee agency. It is instead being put on by the Kuwait America Foundation, with proceeds going to the U.N. agency. The White House schedule called it a “gala dinner for UNHCR honoring First Lady Melania Trump,” without mentioning the Kuwait America Foundation.

“We’re trying to fix that,” the U.N. official said.

posted by zachlipton at 11:35 AM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

they're gluttons for the hard work of self-governance. You may or may not agree with how socialist groups proceed, but they are some of the least afraid of boredom of any activists you will ever meet.

I mean, I’m literally giving up an entire afternoon to volunterarly stuff envelopes tomorrow so....

Als neoliberal has a consistent and simple definition? It’s a belief that the unregulated free market is superior and a consumer model of governance in favor of privatization.
posted by The Whelk at 11:39 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

I think a lot of it results from a group that fancies itself as an edgier, more radical interpretation of modern leftism using shock value to prove that they're edgier and more radical.

We need a variant of "make sure you only punch up" for folks to look to. When the "edgy" is because you're pushing on the side of the envelope that your group supposedly considers good towards the stuff that your group considers bad then you're being a part of pushing that envelope back towards the direction where this shit is okay.

Of course the simpler and perhaps more often likely explanation is that it's not so much edgy but just plain old racism. Not the hoods&torches that's easy for them to identify, but the "I am willing to ignore the desires/pain/needs of this group because it's more important to me to make a gag."
posted by phearlez at 11:49 AM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

You might know what neoliberal means and use it correctly, now can you inform the entirety of the internet? Because wherever I go people seem to use "neoliberal" as a synonym for "thing I don't like", which is increasingly making me want to butt my head against my keyboard constantly.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:49 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Spencer is getting silenced by protesters "Say it loud, say it clear Nazis are not welcome here".
posted by stonepharisee at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2017 [62 favorites]

Audience chants “Go home Spenser”
posted by The Whelk at 11:53 AM on October 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

you might be a neolib if:

you call people who disagree with you "nihilists"
and yet you think single-payer is an unrealistic goal

I think what the left needs to fight Trump is just the right way to partition ourselves. That's what divide and conquer is all about.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:56 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Spencer for Heil
posted by kirkaracha at 11:56 AM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

What We Know About the Niger Attack That Left 4 U.S. Soldiers Dead

damn, one of them, Dustin Wright, is the first member of his family, with a long history in the military, to die on duty going back 205 years.
posted by numaner at 11:57 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Because wherever I go people seem to use "neoliberal" as a synonym for "thing I don't like"

Neoliberal millennial hipster fake news!
posted by duffell at 11:57 AM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

eating crackers
posted by stonepharisee at 11:59 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Audience chants “Go home Spenser”

No dammit, we don't want him here either.
posted by phearlez at 12:00 PM on October 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

> Not? really? It's shifted in meanings multiple times over the 20th and 21st century, and that's before you get into different people meaning different things by it at the same time. Its precise meaning has been anything but simple or consistent.

Has it, though? FWIW I'm not familiar with the history of the word neoliberal pre-1970s, and I can't speak for some straw-rage-against-the-machine fan, but as I understand it, since the last quarter of the 20th century it's fairly consistently referred to either:

1. The Chicago School plan for economic prosperity through the dismantlement of any regulation that might impede capital's field of action (environmental regulations, labor regulations, state-owned industry, etc.)
2. The use of state power to impose the global dismantlement of all regulations that might impede capital's field of action; i.e. neoliberalism aims to be a worldwide system, rather than just "neoliberalism in one state" or whatever.

The reason the term might seem fuzzy, I guess, is that part 1 is about laissez faire economics — i.e. the withdrawal of state power from the market — while part 2 is about the use of state power to impose laissez faire everywhere.

That said, I have seen people use "neoliberal" as a synonym for "liberal" or "conservative," neither of which is quite right. Is that phenomenon what folks are talking about?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:01 PM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Audience chants “Go home Spencer”

The latest from @loisbeckett:

"Do you not want to hear something, poor little babies?" Spencer asks, continuing to treat hostile audience like kindergarteners.
"You can't hide you support genocide!" crowd chants at Spencer. "Are you adults, are you?" Spencer asks. "You all look like immature preschoolers who arent ready for ideas that might get a bit challenging"
Richard Spencer just did a quick little caper onstage, dancing along to the chants and waving his arms sardonically.

Seems like it's going pretty good.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:04 PM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

It seems like a recurring pattern, these movements primarily made up of white men who traffic in edginess and condescension of right wing politics, but over time fall back on their glowing core of white male anger. The New Atheism movement was viciously opposed to the Bush-era Christian Right, but in retrospect appears to have eventually become a breeding ground for the alt-right. South Park libertarians could at one point be relied on to at least not march in lockstep with the far right, but couldn't resist the Hilary-bashing and the Pepe memes. Whenever it's a group that's way too white, way too male, and mainly expresses themselves in the language of condescension, they will eventually turn that condescension towards people who are not white and male. I expect Chapo to follow the same pattern, given enough time.
posted by parallellines at 12:04 PM on October 19, 2017 [51 favorites]

and yet you think single-payer is an unrealistic goal

It depends on whether you're talking about practicality or pragmatically.

For instance, could the United States implement a decent single payer system as a national healthcare policy? You bet your ass. In the grand scheme of things this is the trivial part because we've already got one that supports everyone aged 65+. Budget it, figure out the numbers to tax in place of employee sponsored insurance, and scale up.

Pragmatically, will the United States implement a decent single payer system as a national healthcare policy? Not without the electorate making a wholesale shift 20 points to the Democrats and/or demanding it from their representatives and not denigrate into a "BUT SOSHULISM!" shitfight among the electorate.

2008 showed us we can take back the house, we can take the Senate but unless we have that 3/5 supermajority on board in the Senate, single payer is dead in the water. Also, fuck Joe Lieberman.
posted by Talez at 12:05 PM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Sarah Sanders reading a message from "Mackenzie", a kid who loves Trump and wants to come to visit the White House and shake the president's hand, and who suggests she could bring some food because food brings people together.

I'm saying it's clearly an attempt to poison the president
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:06 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

RE: Event promoters and security.

You go to a concert, and the promoter pays for ushers, t-shirt security, security supervisors, and an contingent of off-duty police officers to provide security for the event. Seems reasonable in this instance. We're not talking about billing them for a police RESPONSE to a 9/11 call, but just basic security staffing to ensure the event is safe and secure shouldn't be born by the school of taxpayer, should it?
posted by mikelieman at 12:06 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also, fuck Joe Lieberman.

Now there’s something we can all agree upon.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [34 favorites]

Challenging ideas? Racism isn't challenging. Racism is a place for tiny minds to hide from things that scare them. Overturning systemic racism is a challenging idea of which Spencer and his ilk are absolutely terrified.

Ugh.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [21 favorites]

Universities citing the first amendment as a justification for essentially shutting down and spending half a million on security to let a Nazi give a speech seems like an unsustainable policy. I feel like there has to be some middle ground where there's a Nazi Webinar or something. Maybe they could hand out Oculus Rifts and the Nazis can pretend to be in the drinking hall of Valhalla.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:10 PM on October 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

Kelly's at the press briefing right now eating Gold Star Meatloaf and defending Trump. Oof.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:11 PM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

Welp, so much for John Kelly’s moral character. Way to piss away a lifetime of service, John.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:12 PM on October 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

They've now brought Kelly out to the press briefing to explain that he suggested Trump not call the families of fallen soldiers and that Bush and Obama didn't call all the families. But that Trump "very bravely" did make calls to the four families of those killed in Niger. Yes, he really said "very bravely." Kelly says Trump "expressed his condolences in the best way that he could."
posted by zachlipton at 12:12 PM on October 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

Oh man, Kelly is doubling down on blaming the Congressperson and covering for Trump. Shame, shame, shame.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [27 favorites]

Holy SHIT, Kelly is specifically and repeatedly saying that they knew what they signed up for.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [39 favorites]

You can’t serve two masters, John. I guess you’ve made your choice. “Shame” is right.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:14 PM on October 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

Audience chants “Go home Spenser”

Hey now! Spenser (Edmund) was a possibly racist poet from the 16th Century. His Faerie Queene was - he said - an attempt to:

"fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline".
posted by Myeral at 12:14 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Maybe military service doesn't automatically make someone an exceptional person after all?
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:14 PM on October 19, 2017 [62 favorites]

Challenging ideas? Racism isn't challenging.

All these new nazis think they're geniuses asking these new questions of society, when this shit was already asked and answered a lifetime ago. The answer was ultimately a pretty bad time for the proto-Spencers so he should probably quit asking.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:15 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Holy SHIT, Kelly is specifically and repeatedly saying that they know what they signed up for.

That ought to do wonders for military recruitment. I remember when the tagline was "An Army of One." "Fulfill your death wish in the US military" is an edgy new take, but hey, you never know.
posted by duffell at 12:15 PM on October 19, 2017 [74 favorites]

Although I hate to say it, the relationship between the Chapo Trap House/"dirtbag left" contingent and mainstream leftism is genuinely best understood as a mirror image of the relationship between the alt-right and the mainstream right. Along those lines, labeling people as "neoliberals" has devolved into their version of calling people "cucks."

Both movements are marked by a desire to turn back the clock on the country and their respective politics. The alt-right wants to return to a time when things were better for white men at everyone else's expense, and an emphasis on ethnocentrism/nationalism. The dirtbag left wants to go back to when leftism was doing the most for laborers and the working class, and although the fact those policies had the greatest benefits for white men is more incidental, both movements still end up having some unfortunate similarities (particularly in terms of the kind of thinking and entitlement they generate, and the personalities they attract).

There's certainly validity to the sentiment that the Clintonian "Third Way" is responsible for the dismal state of both the middle class and the Democratic party, and that while Neoliberalism helped the left rebuild itself when the general population had more conservative leanings, it has also kept the left from returning to its roots as progressivism became more marketable and sorely necessary. Unfortunately, the self-styled dirtbags have something of a "baby with the bathwater" problem in their focus on atavistic progressivism (there's a fun oxymoron). They're disdainful toward everything leftism has evolved to encompass since it moved on from being a labor- and class-based movement, and that seems to cause many of them to view identity politics and "political correctness" in a way that's very similar to the alt-right.
posted by prosopagnosia at 12:16 PM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

Notice how he spent the whole "explanation" talking about male soldiers and "wives" and then said that "women used to be sacred." Yeesh!

What a fucking chauvinist asshole, and you can hear the disdain in his voice that is ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY not at all related to race. Not a bit.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:16 PM on October 19, 2017 [41 favorites]

Kelly — in classic fascist fashion — is only taking questions from servicemembers and/or Gold Star family members. WTF.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:17 PM on October 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

Because I promise you this can be applied to more causes than Nazis. There are a lot of noble causes some people still find "inflammatory".

See the ACLU's fight with the FBI over their list of "Black Identity Extremists."
posted by xyzzy at 12:18 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

i
whAT IS HAPPENING
posted by halation at 12:18 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

No leftist, "dirtbag" or otherwise, should have the slightest sympathy for neoliberalism. Its means are hateful, violent, and expropriative, and its ends are tyrannical and murderous. It didn't "help the left rebuild itself", it helped the Democrats abandon morality and sense in order to drag the party to the right. It's the economics and politics of Reagan and Thatcher. It is death.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:19 PM on October 19, 2017 [21 favorites]

Maybe they need to get the Khans to ask a question?
posted by carsondial at 12:20 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

> What a fucking chauvinist asshole, and you can hear the disdain in his voice that is ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY not at all related to race. Not a bit.

This reminded me to look up the Port Chicago disaster again, since the US military not caring about black lives has been a theme for a long time.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:20 PM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Uh, yeah. I don't think it's the fact that soldiers know there are risks in deployment that is at issue. It's that how could you imply to his deeply grieving widow and mother that the fact in some way mitigates the pain of his death? I mean why else say it?

But good job eating that bowl of shit, Kelly. What's that? Oh, look, here comes another bowl for you John; dig in.
posted by angrycat at 12:21 PM on October 19, 2017 [30 favorites]

Using your dead son as a cudgel against your boss's enemies is some pretty A+ wraithing
posted by theodolite at 12:21 PM on October 19, 2017 [82 favorites]

Oh man, Kelly is doubling down on blaming the Congressperson and covering for Trump. Shame, shame, shame.

Daniel Dale:

? Rep. Wilson is close with the Johnson family, had mentored the late soldier himself. This Kelly line of argument is so bizarre. The family invited Wilson to be with them that day, then confirmed her account of their feelings. Kelly is using his military and Gold Star credibility to deliver Trump's attack in a more effective way.

posted by zombieflanders at 12:22 PM on October 19, 2017 [46 favorites]

@BenjySarlin: This is heartbreaking from Kelly. But also corroborates account of call Trump said was "totally fabricated" and would be proven fake.

Kelly also attacked Rep. Wilson for listening to the call (she's a friend of the family who mentored the fallen soldier and was there at their request), but glossed right over the bit about Sgt. La David Johnson's mother saying Trump disrespected her son.
posted by zachlipton at 12:23 PM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

Kelly — in classic fascist fashion — is only taking questions from servicemembers and/or Gold Star family members. WTF.

This is really deeply outrageous.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:23 PM on October 19, 2017 [31 favorites]

@joshledermanAP: Kelly, defending Trump from White House podium, laments that sanctity of Gold Star families was lost over summer at convention

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU
posted by zombieflanders at 12:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [96 favorites]

Martyrdom Guarantees Press Access! Would You Like To Know More?
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:25 PM on October 19, 2017 [40 favorites]

They've now brought Kelly out to the press briefing to explain that he suggested Trump not call the families of fallen soldiers.

I am 153% sure Kelly did suggest, command, beseech Trump not to call those families. And we all know why.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:25 PM on October 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

> @joshledermanAP: Kelly, defending Trump from White House podium, laments that sanctity of Gold Star families was lost over summer at convention

Your Honor, I'm an orphan now...
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:25 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Kelly — in classic fascist fashion — is only taking questions from servicemembers and/or Gold Star family members. WTF.

And reporters who "know" Gold Star families, which many do, at least professionally.
posted by zachlipton at 12:25 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

The dirtbag left wants to go back to when leftism was doing the most for laborers and the working class, and although the fact those policies had the greatest benefits for white men is more incidental, both movements still end up having some unfortunate similarities (particularly in terms of the kind of thinking and entitlement they generate, and the personalities they attract).

I really resent the Chapo shitlords of the left dragging back progress on these issues. Because the basic class argument is true. Democrats really did abandon labor and the working class. We really do have to get back to those issues in a big, authentic, ambitious way. Without also abandoning progress made on other social fronts. AND THAT SHOULDNT BE HARD. They should go together like Nutella frosting on delicious chocolate cupcakes. Expanding economic equality really can help racial and sex equality at the same time. Ironic rape jokes from white guys named Cumface online are not helping in any way, not even if they’ve accurately stated the economic argument.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:28 PM on October 19, 2017 [30 favorites]

These same officials are convinced that the World Health Organization is a “corrupt, hostile bureaucracy that achieves no actual [public health] capacity in countries.”

Dafuq? The WHO is on the verge of achieving the complete extinction of poliomyelitis.

They've already done it to smallpox and guinea worms.

And they've done it with rinderpest, which means they have a shot at annihilating measles.

This is what it means when we say a white house is anti-science.
posted by ocschwar at 12:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [72 favorites]

They've now brought Kelly out to the press briefing to explain that he suggested Trump not call the families of fallen soldiers ...

Every President in history has known when to stop chewing when he finds his foot in his mouth. Donald Trump is singular not just in his ignorance of that, but in his resolute determination to gnaw off his own leg.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Representative Wilson's job was to represent Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who found the President's phone call to be disrespectful to her late son's memory. The Representative did her job as ably as she could.

Chief of Staff General Kelly's job was to represent the President, who falsely accused Representative Wilson of lying, falsely claimed to have proof of the lies, and who now appears to be using the defense that everything Representative Wilson said was accurate, but that it was totally fine for him to conduct the phone call in that manner and she's disrespectfully beyond the pale for the sacrilege of complaining about it. The Chief of Staff did his job as ably as he could. Unfortunately, the job is evil.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [27 favorites]

No leftist, "dirtbag" or otherwise, should have the slightest sympathy for neoliberalism. Its means are hateful, violent, and expropriative, and its ends are tyrannical and murderous. It didn't "help the left rebuild itself", it helped the Democrats abandon morality and sense in order to drag the party to the right. It's the economics and politics of Reagan and Thatcher. It is death.

Pope Guilty, I honestly agree with you for the most part. I suppose I just view some of neoliberalism as a "necessary evil" in the context of US/UK politics in the 80's and early 90's (even if that evil became a runaway force in the way evil so often does). It's difficult for me to imagine how Carter-era leftist politics could have broken the stranglehold Conservativism had on the post-Reagan US, and how much damage the right could have done if the left simply waited for a natural implosion that made true progressivism seem more attractive again.

For all its faults, the Clinton/Blair approach won elections and at least gave the left the chance to do *some* damage control, in an era where corporatism no longer had to fear socialist competition/uprisings and became totally unrestrained.
posted by prosopagnosia at 12:31 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

I've been off for a while because of a lot of personal issues all layered in a toxic pile.
Not sure I'm really back again. But there is a thing I feel I need to comment on in the current discussion.
If you are white and over 40, and you grew up in Western Europe or North America, I will not believe that you don't have racist and sexist assumptions about society built into your world view. I am all of those and I know I grew up with those assumptions, in spite of being raised in a family where racism and bigotry were not in any way acceptable. Actually, in the community I grew up in, any form of LGTBQ life was acceptable and one would be ostracized for not accepting people of different sexual orientations*. My best friend in middle school was black. And being friends with black people and listening to jazz were indicators of cool. Racism was seen as a bad thing. But everyone was racist. And something like half the liberal, educated people I know today are still racist. Oh, and sexist, too.
The day I got this was 30 years ago when I, as a dance teacher, looked to a black student and she called me out: why would I ever imagine she had some special knowledge that the other students didn't, just because of her color. I'm still so embarrassed I don't know how to deal with it. But it woke me. It taught me I was racist. It taught me to revise my assumption of my good intentions.

I am trying to deal with the racism and sexism that is a huge part of my cultural heritage and that I need to confront and change. But I am not meeting any support from my peers. I'm told I lack a sense of humor and that I want to restrict free speech.

* after a discussion here on the blue which I am not linking to but it is easy to find, I acknowledge that I grew up in a very rare community that was unusually accepting of LGTBQ people and that that community was very small (maybe about 1000 people) Our community is not racist and I was recently at a funeral for a prominent feminist — my godmother, but I acknowledge that we are a small group.
posted by mumimor at 12:32 PM on October 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

I went back and pulled the tape (about 7m in) to make sure I heard it right:

But then he said, you know, "how do you make these calls?" If you're not in the family, if you've never worn the uniform, if you've never been in combat, you can't even imagine how to make that call. But I think he, very bravely, does make those calls.

Yes, John Kelly described the guy who joked he should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for being braver than Vietnam vets because he had lots of sex as brave.
posted by zachlipton at 12:34 PM on October 19, 2017 [38 favorites]

Representative Wilson's job was to represent Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who found the President's phone call to be disrespectful to her late son's memory. The Representative did her job as ably as she could.

As far as I can tell, she wasn't even there to represent anyone, she was a friend of the family who was mourning along with them when Trump called.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:36 PM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Atom Eyes: There was also a recent 'joke' tweet in which two of the Chapo dudes and Josh Androsky, co-chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA, posed next to Bill Cosby's Hollywood star with the caption "hey libs try taking THIS statue down'.

Mitheral: 20 minutes, 2 guys, jackhammer.

Wikipedia documents various acts of theft and vandalism, which indicates that even if a star is removed, it won't stay gone. And just to remind you there are other "bad" stars, LA Weekly lists 9 other stars recognizing "bad people", and Absolut Vodka.

Leron Gubler, president and chief executive of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce -- "Once a star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame."
posted by filthy light thief at 12:38 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Kelly thinks that phone call where Trump abused a Gold Star family, is sacred. This is how powerful people and even not powerful people get away with abuse, in therapeutic circles it is called The Alcoholic No Talk Rule. Daddy was just drunk, he didn't mean that. What were you listening to that for, anyway? Jesus Kelly!
posted by Oyéah at 12:38 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Trump must have serious hypnotic powers, or compromising material on literally everyone on Earth, or both. I mean, if I were to meet with him for three minutes would I walk out, get in front of a microphone, defend his use of Twitter and endorse him for 2020? I guess I can't rule it out.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:39 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

What really sucks so much is that Congresswoman Wilson is herself also a grieving member of Sgt. Johnson's family-and-friend group. These bastards, painting her as some outsider and stranger (LIKE THEY ARE) who doesn't care anything about the Johnsons, while the fact that John Kelly's son died makes him like authoritative and qualified to judge her.

It makes my blood boil. It's sad that your son died, guy. But right now we're talking about this other family's loss, and you don't get to decide who they let participate in the phone call or what the dead soldier's mindset was. YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM. Wilson did. So, you know, fuck off.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:39 PM on October 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

It's that how could you imply to his deeply grieving widow and mother that the fact in some way mitigates the pain of his death?

It's like hitting someone in the face, and then saying, "Well, you asked for it."
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:40 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump must have serious hypnotic powers, or compromising material on literally everyone on Earth, or both

Or Kelly wants to make sure the right people stay near Trump until Trump no longer has the football.

Oh, the memoirs that will come out of this....
posted by ocschwar at 12:41 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Or Kelly's just an irredeemable POS who wants to stay in power.
posted by asteria at 12:42 PM on October 19, 2017 [39 favorites]

Glad to know the people at U Florida are shouting down Spencer. He has free speech, so do they.

The only reason he wanted to speak at a university campus is because he sees universities as hotbeds of liberalism and therefore sees making Nazi speeches at a university as a power display. If he wanted to talk to Nazis he could have rented his own hall somewhere, or just gotten the Kochs to donate him some time at one of their facilities.

He's only at the university as a way of saying fuck you to what he imagines is a liberal safe space.

That means he can, and should, be shouted down. He came into a space where here's free speech, he abused the rules protecting free speech, and surprise motherfucker those rules also mean the students there have the free speech to shut your sorry Nazi ass down.

So good on 'em. The only way it could be better is if they'd sneaked in a projector and put the clip of him getting punched on a loop.

************

As for Kelly, is anyone really surprised? He took a job with Trump. Don't tell me people here have fallen for the old BS about soldiers being moral paragons. He took a job with Trump. That means he's scum. He sold out every scrap of honor, dignity, and so on the very instant he said "yes, I'll work under Donald Trump".

There's a very simple test to see if someone has honor or dignity: will they work for Trump?

If the answer is yes, then they don't.
posted by sotonohito at 12:42 PM on October 19, 2017 [43 favorites]

zachlipton: They also want to further screw over federal workers with a pay freeze and ending all pensions and retiree health benefits.

The federal government employed just over 2 million full-time employees, excluding Postal Service workers, per BLS 2016 annual data. And ending all pensions and retiree health benefits? Add in spouses and family members impacted by this bullshit, and that's a lot of voters.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:43 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Back to Richard Spencer for a second, apparently he defended the car attack that killed Heather Hier, so there’s your evidence of advocating violence. Memo to all public universities: defend the lawsuit. You will win. We don’t have to listen to this shit ever again, unless you affirmatively choose to allow it.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:44 PM on October 19, 2017 [49 favorites]

Right wingers think GWB sold out with his speech, are pissed that he never spoke of Obama but is referring to Trump.
posted by jgirl at 12:50 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Trump gives himself a 10/10 on Puerto Rico storm aid.

He's trash. Everyone associated with his administration is trash. Everyone who voted for him is trash.

And the entire planet has to put up with this shitshow because over 60 million Americans were more willing to believe what was said about a woman than what she was saying and more willing to believe what a mediocre white man was saying than what others were saying about him.

Ever notice how when HRC -- or just about any woman in power or seeking power -- apologizes, the storyline is simultaneously 1) the apology is insincere, 2) she's weak to apologize and 3) she arrogantly refused to apologize? Yet Trump and many others like him can get away with never apologizing or explaining and that just makes his underlings and far too many members of the press (though by no means all) bow and scrape even harder.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:50 PM on October 19, 2017 [82 favorites]

Talez: In the grand scheme of things this is the trivial part because we've already got one that supports everyone aged 65+. Budget it, figure out the numbers to tax in place of employee sponsored insurance, and scale up.

Bold vision: let's make it optional in regions where there are few or no options for insurance (particularly rural areas), then slowly expand the option nation-wide! I call it Medicare X! Well, that's what Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee members Tim Kaine of Virginia and Michael Bennet of Colorado call it.

The plan, called “Medicare-X,” would be available initially in areas that lack competition — including 14 mostly rural counties in Colorado with only one insurance option — and would roll out nationwide by 2023. Participants could qualify for the same tax credits and cost-sharing reduction payments available under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

“There was no reason to reinvent the wheel,” Bennet said. “The plan uses exactly the same network that’s open to Medicare patients today. At least the network is set up on Day One.”

Although it wouldn’t involve paying into the existing Medicare trust fund, participants would be able to use Medicare’s network of doctors operating under already-set reimbursement rates. The plan would guarantee coverage of Obamacare-mandated essential health benefits, including maternity care and mental health. The bill would also allow the federal government to negotiate the plan’s prescription drug prices along with the Medicare Part D program.

posted by filthy light thief at 12:52 PM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

And the entire planet has to put up with this shitshow because over 60 million Americans were more willing to believe what was said about a woman than what she was saying and more willing to believe what a mediocre white man was saying than what others were saying about him.

Agree 100%, but calling Donald Trump a mediocre white man is an insult to mediocrity.
posted by duffell at 12:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [32 favorites]

Mediocre white man here. Please. Be kind.
posted by ocschwar at 12:54 PM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

Universities citing the first amendment as a justification for essentially shutting down and spending half a million on security to let a Nazi give a speech seems like an unsustainable policy. I feel like there has to be some middle ground where there's a Nazi Webinar or something.

The middle ground will likely be universities sharply limiting the rental or free use of their space to the extent that state law allows them to. Like, only events sponsored directly by a unit of the university (a school, department, center, etc) and not by a student or outside group can use the space.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

any more than 'socialist' has a singular meaning.

I think socialism is pretty much defined as:

a political theory advocating state ownership of industry

or, equivalently,

an economic system based on state ownership of capital

Neoliberalism, OTOH, is not as neatly contained, since it is more of an "eye of the beholder" type of deal:

a political orientation originating in the 1960s; blends liberal political views with an emphasis on economic growth

posted by Mental Wimp at 12:58 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

So is University of Florida run by shitty right wing nutjobs, or just people so intimidated by the Nazis that they're giving them everything they want?

Practically speaking, does it matter? Shame on them either way. No one is fooled by their pious "free speech" burblings.

Well, except NPR.
posted by Gelatin at 1:01 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

a political orientation originating in the 1960s; blends liberal political views with an emphasis on economic growth

That definition is completely wrong though? "Neoliberalism" as such originated in the 1930's (see Hayek et al); the "liberalism" referred to is not "liberal political views" in the USian sense of "liberal" but liberal economics in the 19th century sense (laissez-faire, free trade, open markets).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:03 PM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

I think socialism is pretty much defined as:
a political theory advocating state ownership of industry

No, socialism is the control of the means, conditions, and output of production by the workers rather than by a separate ownership class. State ownership by a government operating on behalf of the working class is one approach for achieving/managing this, but it is certainly not an uncontroversial approach among socialists.


That definition is completely wrong though? "Neoliberalism" as such originated in the 1930's (see Hayek et al); the "liberalism" referred to is not "liberal political views" in the USian sense of "liberal" but liberal economics in the 19th century sense (laissez-faire, free trade, open markets).

Also this is entirely correct. Neoliberalism is not liberal as in the Democrats, it's liberal as in liberal democracy.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:06 PM on October 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

Practically speaking, does it matter? Shame on them either way. No one is fooled by their pious "free speech" burblings.

They're a state run university. There are various precedents that govern the conduct of state institution when it comes to the content of presentations when hiring out space for meetings. If they make meeting space available, it has to be made available to anybody. You cannot charge people for security unless they can afford to pay and there is specific precedent to this. They can make content-neutral restrictions on the time and place but they cannot just say "nazis go home" because that would be the government restricting freedom of speech.

Whether you consider hate speech to be speech that comes under the first amendment is left as an exercise for the reader but the courts have concluded that yes, as long as it isn't a direct incitement to violence, it's protected. It's called the Brandenburg test and it's stood for decades.

What you're asking is for an institution to take on a Don Quixote style legal battle to try and restrict freedom of speech for hate speech. That's not reasonable.
posted by Talez at 1:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

John Kelly is officially the Witch King of Angmar in Trumps cadre of dignity wraiths. Also Trump never wore a uniform so doesn’t know how hard it is to make that phonecall? Obama never served either shitstain. Yet basic human decency I guess kept him from doing shit like dishonoring a pregnant military widow and making her grief even worse. Way too much to expect from this chucklefuck and his merry band of clownshoes. Like the bar “do not make pregnant women cry” is too high.
posted by supercrayon at 1:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

Trump gives himself a 10/10 on Puerto Rico storm aid.

When I was a lowly adjunct prof I used to sometimes do that thing where you let students assign themselves their own grades and I swear it never failed that the kids who gave themselves A's or A+'s were solidly the stupidest of the bunch with the worst worst papers.
posted by dis_integration at 1:09 PM on October 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

Mediocre white man here. Please. Be kind.

Definitely not trying to insult anyone here with that part, was referencing this idea: Grant Every Woman The Confidence of A Mediocre White Man, which references a prayer originated by the writer Sarah Hagi.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:11 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

And now the talking heads on cable (I know, I know) are taking turns genuflecting to their generalissimo. This is disgusting.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 1:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Back during the 30 seconds in which I was a wee baby libertarian, I heard the term "classical liberalism" used to define laissez-faire ideology.

The whole "neoliberalism" being shortered to "libs" thing on the left really just makes a lot of bystandards feel that fucking everyone on all sides is hurling the word "lib" at them constantly.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

hahahaha, UF Spencer update: the format of the event devolved into a Q&A and just wrapped up. The audience has been very raucous and irreverent throughout. The last question asked from the audience was, "how did it feel to get punched in the face on camera?". Spencer and his two dozen Nazi buddies lose their shit like big babies, "the world is going to think this university is made up of children!"
posted by indubitable at 1:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [40 favorites]

What you're asking is for an institution to take on a Don Quixote style legal battle to try and restrict freedom of speech for hate speech. That's not reasonable.

Maybe this wasn't the right case at the right time, but it certainly is reasonable to ask a large university system to protect its students from white supremacists, even if that means they might get sued and they might eventually lose that lawsuit. If it granted the students one additional day on campus without a white supremacist recruiting event taking place, it would be worthwhile. UF students and staff should not have to endure this, and delaying the event through forcing Spencer to sue, while possibly expensive, would not be unreasonable. They have a duty to protect their staff and students; those staff and students are not unreasonable for asking that the University system protect them.

UF made decisions here, and those decisions should not be swept under the rug just because some legal precedent exists. Legal precedents exist until someone challenges them.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:17 PM on October 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

That definition is completely wrong though? "Neoliberalism" as such originated in the 1930's (see Hayek et al); the "liberalism" referred to is not "liberal political views" in the USian sense of "liberal" but liberal economics in the 19th century sense (laissez-faire, free trade, open markets).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:03 PM on October 19 [9 favorites +] [!]

Exactly the point. It's been messed up for a long time. It's true that "socialism" is misused as an epithet all the time, but serious writing about it pretty much hews to dictionary definition. Neoliberalism should have that original meaning, but you read all sorts of nonsense about what it means, including that definition I linked.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:17 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Chief of Staff General Kelly's job was to represent the President, who falsely accused Representative Wilson of lying, falsely claimed to have proof of the lies, and who now appears to be using the defense that everything Representative Wilson said was accurate, but that it was totally fine for him to conduct the phone call in that manner and she's disrespectfully beyond the pale for the sacrilege of complaining about it.

I am so angry. I am so angry all the time.
No, I'm not surprised.
But I am still so fucking angry all the fucking time.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:19 PM on October 19, 2017 [33 favorites]

Or Kelly's just an irredeemable POS who wants to stay in power.

He's not among the people who could initiate 25th amendment proceedings, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of ht edoubt.
posted by ocschwar at 1:21 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

CNN: RT bucks DOJ request to register as a foreign agent

This is fine.

This is normal.

Now, how will the US respond? "Oh well, we tried." ?
posted by filthy light thief at 1:23 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

UF made decisions here, and those decisions should not be swept under the rug just because some legal precedent exists. Legal precedents exist until someone challenges them.

They made prudent decisions under the color of the long settled law of the land. That's what a career administrator is supposed to do. A lawsuit shitfight could draw out to seven figures which is going to come out as tuition or budget cuts. It costs them half a mill to do this asshole's little stunt, he goes away, they resolve never to rent out a hall again.
posted by Talez at 1:23 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Back to Richard Spencer for a second, apparently he defended the car attack that killed Heather Hier, so there’s your evidence of advocating violence. Memo to all public universities: defend the lawsuit. You will win. We don’t have to listen to this shit ever again, unless you affirmatively choose to allow it.

I'm not saying I am opposed to this idea, but never forget the first rule of lawsuits: there are tiers of winning and only one group comes out as the top tier every time: the lawyers who collect their fees. Plenty of people have "won" lawsuits and capped it all off by closing their businesses.

Public universities don't close up shop when they lose money. They just raise tuition and cut services. I have spent about half my professional career working for public colleges and universities and in the... ugh, 25+ years since I first worked in one the percentage of the cost of tuition that the state has shouldered has dropped tremendously. When I was working at MDCC the amount Florida provided higher ed per full time enrolled student was $8,295. Now it's $6,150.

So actions that will lead to a lawsuit more involved than file & respond are going to cut into already strained money. Something will get cut, and the way the world ends up working it's more likely to cut from stuff needier students require.

So risking suit, or stuff like this to reduce access to these nazi shitbags:

The middle ground will likely be universities sharply limiting the rental or free use of their space to the extent that state law allows them to. Like, only events sponsored directly by a unit of the university (a school, department, center, etc) and not by a student or outside group can use the space.

It's gonna hurt folks who need it. That access cut will hurt community operations that need an affordable venue and will hurt the uni coffers by reducing money from the vast majority of non-nazi renters.

It doesn't mean it's necessarily the wrong decision, but it's easy for us to just shrug this off like it's just an inconvenience for the administration. These sorts of tradeoffs are a daily thing in state run schools and they're often not easy. I sat in a meeting once where someone spoke glowingly of the scholarships that were funded by that year's record profits from the school bookstore. Being a student myself at that time I thought, those profits are all on the backs of every student buying books, needy or not. Whether that's the right or wrong way to help students isn't black and white.

UF and other schools absolutely need to get into 2017 and look at the way this wave of shit is gaming the system and try to find a way to protect their students. But just waving a hand like they must not care if this came to pass doesn't jibe with my experience with the folks who worked in higher ed, and some of these solutions we talk about with such ease can really impact their mission. And I feel pretty strongly about that mission, personally.
posted by phearlez at 1:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

Right wingers think GWB sold out with his speech, are pissed that he never spoke of Obama but is referring to Trump.

One of those tweets say that GWB should go back to Crawford and play cowboy, which is funny (not actually funny) because the last thing Bush did in Crawford was a big charity bike race for injured service members. Trump is so awful that he's really making Bush seem like a decent person.
posted by peeedro at 1:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

Trump is so awful that he's really making Bush seem like a decent person.

He's so awful he makes Bush look like an eloquent statesman.
posted by Talez at 1:26 PM on October 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

mumimor If you are white and over 40, and you grew up in Western Europe or North America, I will not believe that you don't have racist and sexist assumptions about society built into your world view.

I disagree with you only in the limiters you put on that statement.

If you are a person in contact with American culture then you have racism built into your worldview. It's inescapable.

Racism is like the flu, it's everywhere and everyone has it. The right question is not "do you have racism built into your worldview", because the answer to that question is always yes. The right question is "are you working against the racism built into your worldview?"

Remember that even black people suffer from internalized, subconscious, racism. There was an experiment where test subjects were briefly shown pictures of people, some with guns, some with empty hands, some with non-gun objects in their hands. They had to click when they thought they saw an armed person, easy right?

All test subjects, regardless of race, had more false positives when the picture showed a black man.

Racism, like misogyny and homophobia, is part of the air we breathe, it is baked into the substructure of our entire society and no one, regardless of age, origin, or upbringing, is immune. All we can do is recognize that part of ourselves and try to struggle against it, to try and recognize those pars of our thoughts that are formed by racism rather than reality.

I'm a white guy in a relationship with a black woman, for that reason alone I'm perhaps a bit more aware of my own internalized, subconscious, racism than many other white men. My experience with my own subconscious racism has been an exercise in rather horrified discovery as I uncovered prejudice after prejudice baked right into my own mind. I am continually amazed that people of color are able to put up with the day to day bullshit that they are subjected to by my fellow white people.

I'm still so embarrassed I don't know how to deal with it. But it woke me. It taught me I was racist. It taught me to revise my assumption of my good intentions.

I think that's the way a person of good will does deal with it. By recognizing the wrong they've done and undertaking the lifelong, humbling, task of resisting the racism within them. Which is why...

I am trying to deal with the racism and sexism that is a huge part of my cultural heritage and that I need to confront and change. But I am not meeting any support from my peers. I'm told I lack a sense of humor and that I want to restrict free speech.

It's always easier to hide from the problems in our own minds. No one really enjoys the process of recognizing that they have a fucked up worldview and taking the steps to try and correct it. It's so much easier to just deny the problem. To define "racism" in such a way that it can't possibly include us, because we're good people, right? And good people aren't racist, so there's no way we can be racist, right?

The prize you get for being able to recognize your own internalized racism (and homophobia, and misogyny) is a lifetime of cringing at your own attitudes and trying to analyze your thoughts and ideas to see how much racism has been a factor in their formation. Not "if racism has been a factor in their formation", but "how much", because racism is **ALWAYS** a factor in how our thoughts and ideas formed. It's exhausting and thankless and you'll be viewed as a humorless killjoy PC prude for doing so.

In feminist circles there's a joke/truism that feminism ruins everything. Because once you start thinking from a feminist standpoint you suddenly see the misogyny built into, well, everything. There was a time when I could walk past a display of Star Wars action figures and just think "cool, action figures". Now, without any effort or thought, I find myself checking to see how many of those figures are women, and of the few that are women how they are sexualized (answers: very few, and in truly depressing and off model ways [1]).

The same applies to being woke (or as woke as a white guy can get) about racism. Suddenly things that once seemed boring, normal, and nothing worth notice or comment loom large in mind and you see at least some of the racism that suffuses literally everything in our culture.

Being woke ruins everything. And that's good. We should see the bad parts of what's going on.

But in our society we use the word "disillusioned" as if it was a bad thing. Think about that for a moment. Disillusioned should be something we all seek, why would we want to live an illusioned life? Why would we want to live in a world where reality is masked by illusion? Shouldn't seeing the truth be good?

We say a person is disillusioned as if it were bad because the reality is ugly. A great many people who are ostensibly on our side would rather simply shore up their illusions, about themselves, about our society, about their place in society and how they gained it, than admit the ugliness of the truth and undertake the hard and heartbreaking labor of trying to make reality less ugly.

And that sucks, but it's also part of reality. Your average white leftist guy is going to resist getting onboard with a program of feminism, anti-racism, and LGBT rights. It hurts their self image as a person who is already over all that stuff.

[1] Take, for example, a few years ago when I noticed that despite Star Wars: Rebels having not just one female character in the main cast, but two, all the action figures were of the guys. There was one set of tiny little Warhammer scale figures that included Sabine Wren, one of the women in the cast. Her breasts had magically grown enormous, and her armor had suddenly developed a large ass with a lovingly crafted crack, both radically different from her model in the show where her chestplate isn't really exaggerated and her armor doesn't have an ass crack.
posted by sotonohito at 1:27 PM on October 19, 2017 [71 favorites]

According to Kelly, the real problem is that we no longer institute forced conscription. Cool, cool.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

They made prudent decisions under the color of the long settled law of the land. That's what a career administrator is supposed to do. A lawsuit shitfight could draw out to seven figures which is going to come out as tuition or budget cuts. It costs them half a mill to do this asshole's little stunt, he goes away, they resolve never to rent out a hall again.

The school went beyond the minimum needed to avoid a lawsuit though, for example giving Spencer the right to decide which media were allowed in to cover it.
posted by msalt at 1:31 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm very interested to someday hear what happened behind the scenes in the Mueller investigation these past couple weeks. We've had Trump going on the attack against the FBI and Comey again...

For what it's worth, James Comey's apparent Twitter account has in the last 24 hours broken its long silence with a couple contemplative DC-area photos and some vague references to "leadership and values."
posted by contraption at 1:32 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Public universities have in house legal departments paid on a flat state salary, they’re already paying those people regardless of what legal actions come against the school. This not a high dollar lawsuit to defend. It’d be approximately the same amount of work as a fired professor suing for breach of contract, which happens all the time. And Spencer does not have millions of dollars of potential liability, they’re literally spending more today on providing him security than if they denied him a platform based on likelihood of violence and went to trial.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:32 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Those legal departments aren't full of litigation experts and it would not surprise me one bit if they brought in outside counsel for high profile or important lawsuits. Scratch that; it would surprise me if they didn't.
posted by Justinian at 1:36 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Josh Marshall, TPM: John Kelly’s Volcanic Remarks

Kelly also said, in addition to his other criticisms of Rep. Wilson that he was stunned she had ‘listened in’ on a call from the President to a bereaved widow. It seems quite clear from everything we know that the family took President Trump’s call on speaker phone with Rep. Wilson there with them. My understanding is she had a personal relationship with the family. He made it sound like she was violating some trust, eavesdropping almost. That seems deeply misleading and dishonest. Kelly did not mention that the mother, who was there, backed up Rep. Wilson’s account. Wilson made a very direct and damaging attack on the President. But this is a member of Congress, caring for and being with a bereaved family. Invited by them, sharing their pain. ‘Listening in’ is just an attack that turns everything on its head. [...]

There was so much in his remarks that I want to take a bit to think it over, absorb it. There’s a lot there about this moment and the Trump presidency, a lot about John Kelly. Kelly has a lot of credibility he has earned. I don’t want to question his motives simply because his description and comments seem so at odds with what I have seen over recent days. But the entirety of his comments seemed exploitative, an effort to turn people’s certainly reasonable (and I believe accurate) sense of being appalled at the President into an attack on military service and military sacrifice. That’s not right. That’s not true. It’s a more emotion-packed version of Trump’s effort to turn the flag protests into dishonoring military sacrifice. He ended up by refusing to take questions from reporters who couldn’t say they personally knew a Gold Star Family.

Freedom of speech and the press is also sacred. It is one of the values American military personnel strive to defend. I understand that he said this in a moment of peaked emotion. But we individuals or reporters don’t earn our spurs of civic freedom by being proximate to military service. That’s ugly and wrong. I am going to leave aside Kelly’s motives. But this spectacle seemed ugly and exploitative, ignoring much of what has happened over the last three days, falsifying other things. President Trump is a blowhard and a phony and a liar. Kelly isn’t. He brings prestige and a lifetime of military service to every remark. But at the end of the day this seemed like putting that wrapper of dignity around the most Trumpian of traits: never apologize, always attack, let the truth defend itself.

posted by tonycpsu at 1:38 PM on October 19, 2017 [62 favorites]

There's a very well known Nazi here in Minneapolis who I actually saw walking down the street near my house this morning. (He doesn't live in the neighborhood but owns an empty commercial building here, and was coming out of that building. He's also very recognizable.) I was late for work and didn't punch him or anything. I'm pretty nonviolent but if I had eggs I would have cracked one on his (expensive German) car. Still kinda shaken.
posted by miyabo at 1:41 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

neoliberalism is a chinese hoax
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:43 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm very interested to someday hear what happened behind the scenes in the Mueller investigation...

James Comey's apparent Twitter account has in the last 24 hours broken its long silence with a couple contemplative DC-area photos...

I'm missing the relationship between these items. What is the theory here? Comey knows something huge is coming, so he's warming up his twitter feed? That seems like a stretch.
posted by diogenes at 1:43 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

marxists' besetting sin is secrecy; anarchists' is foolery

And getting back to this, while it can be ...embarrassing that all our internal politics are Extremly visible, I vastly prefer it to the alternative. I have some really firm beliefs in like, radical transparency so while it looks like we’re constantly fighting all the time I prefer it to becoming some kind of cabal like our detractors claim.

Also every time I’m frustrated with anarchists’ members critiques I like remind myself they’re keeping us honest- we can’t replicate the structures of the systems where trying to replace - avoiding concentrations of power is one way to answer anarchist criticism of socialist systems.
posted by The Whelk at 1:47 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Another thing to remember about Florida's state-funded universities is who's doing the funding. The governor is pals with Trump, both houses of the state legislature are controlled by Republicans, and the House in particular is actively hostile to higher education. Just last year some House twerp hauled the university presidents in front of his committee to grill them about their foundation fund-raising, just because. Three years ago they jammed through a performance incentive funding system that in large measure ties state support to how many graduates choose to work in Florida, and how high their starting salaries are. They take their cues from their former leader Marco Rubio, who publicly said (paraphrasing) that we need fewer philosophers and more plumbers.

Every university official down here is painfully aware that lawmakers are looking for one more reason to cut their funding, and blocking those poor innocent Nazis' free speech rights is just the excuse they need -- see, those damn ivory-tower egghead liberals won't practice what they preach, why should we be giving them all this money? Sure, you can rightly argue that's utter BS, but you won't win, because you are sadly overestimating the intelligence and the ethics, and underestimating the meanness and partisanship, of the typical Florida legislator.
posted by martin q blank at 1:48 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

The school went beyond the minimum needed to avoid a lawsuit though, for example giving Spencer the right to decide which media were allowed in to cover it.

They're just a landlord in this situation. Why would they get to say who comes and goes? Saying they're gonna feel free to invite people other than those who the renter decides to give/sell tickets to would be more likely to be the lawsuit-causing action.

I've reviewed shows at the DC Arts Center. The people who credentialed me and invited me - or didn't invite me - were members of the theater company putting on the show, not the folks who run the space.
posted by phearlez at 1:49 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

West Point, New York, is "DC area" now?
posted by elsietheeel at 1:49 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Daily Stormer's handy hints for blending in today at UF.
posted by jgirl at 1:50 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Let this image from the UF protests inspire you today.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:51 PM on October 19, 2017 [40 favorites]

I want that on a t-shirt.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:52 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

For context, I've had to tell people their loved one has died. Thankfully not often, but I have had to do it. I received no training for this by the way. And literally every single time before I do it the thought that flashes through my head is "Please don't let me make this worse." Like that is literally the bare minimum that you can do for a grieving family.

Trump didn't have to tell this woman that her husband was dead. She didn't have to tell his mother that he was dead. Someone else already did that hard work. He literally just had to say, "I'm so sorry this happened." and then some platitudes about service. He couldn't even manage that.

I'm not surprised, as I genuinely don't feel like Trump is capable of normal human emotion. I think the man is an utter narcissistic psychopath. However the extent to which he is being enabled and lent cover by people who should nominally know better - that does I'm sorry to say continue to surprise me a little, especially since the rewards they're reaping for selling their own souls are so entirely petty.
posted by supercrayon at 1:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [58 favorites]

Let this image from the UF protests inspire you today.

The coconut-like sound of their heads colliding secretly delighted the bird.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

I understand the school can't prevent a Nazi from renting the space. But they could have a hundred other events in the days before and after, with professors speaking about democracy and tolerance?
posted by miyabo at 1:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Huffpost article about Spencer's speech has him protesting being called a Nazi, yet we have links to his followers being asked to cover their swastika tattoos.

Not real believable, Spence. Just sayin'
posted by Archelaus at 1:54 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

For what it's worth, James Comey's apparent Twitter account has in the last 24 hours broken its long silence with a couple contemplative DC-area photos and some vague references to "leadership and values."

Native New Yorker here. The guy's got good taste. The Hudson River Valley is beautiful this time of year, and that's a great photo... ( Full disclosure, I busted an ankle orienteering at West Point one fall meet years and years ago... )
posted by mikelieman at 1:54 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Let this image from the UF protests inspire you today.

As The Whelk said previously,
REACH OUT AND
PUNCH FACE
posted by supercrayon at 1:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

MetaFilter: I want that on a t-shirt.
posted by loquacious at 1:59 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, there are way too many facial piercings in that UF photo considering all the fisticuffs and shoving going on.
posted by loquacious at 2:00 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

What you're asking is for an institution to take on a Don Quixote style legal battle to try and restrict freedom of speech for hate speech. That's not reasonable.

It's also not reasonable to require a university to provide a forum to a group whose planned event is so potentially menacing to public safety that the university has to invest half a million dollars in security for the event to keep folks from getting hurt. That's a pretty large burden.

I mean, nobody would require them to rent out their fieldhouse to a rodeo if the rodeo would result in a $500,000 clean-up tab for the U of F.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:00 PM on October 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

I mean, nobody would require them to rent out their fieldhouse to a rodeo if the rodeo would result in a $500,000 clean-up tab for the U of F.

( At least that's HONEST bullshit.... )
posted by mikelieman at 2:02 PM on October 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

Uh, yeah. I don't think it's the fact that soldiers know there are risks in deployment that is at issue. It's that how could you imply to his deeply grieving widow and mother that the fact in some way mitigates the pain of his death? I mean why else say it?

If he had said something to the effect of "he knew the risks but signed up anyway, because that's the kind of man he was", that would be fine. But because that's more empathy than he can process, the best he could do was "welp, he knew the risks, whaddayagonnado?"
posted by schoolgirl report at 2:03 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Holy SHIT, Kelly is specifically and repeatedly saying that they know what they signed up for.

Honestly - we did. At least I did, and the guys I served with did. We were all very aware that we could die, that signing up for the military meant we could die. The closer to combat, the more it was true. Infantrymen never get tired of telling you they expect to die.

The problem isn't that Trump said that a fallen service member knew what the oath he swore meant. The problem is that Trump is a graceless buffoon who can't sound compassionate if he tried.

You could say: "Ma'am, your husband was a brave, selfless man. Every time he went out there, he knew that today might be the day his life would end - but he thought protecting children/defending democracy/America was so important he was willing and ready to make that sacrifice. That's what being a hero is. We are so proud to have had him with us."

And that's a totally different statement, even though it's saying the same thing. Because the one is heartfelt and the other isn't.
posted by corb at 2:05 PM on October 19, 2017 [124 favorites]

tonycpsu: I am going to leave aside Kelly’s motives. But this spectacle seemed ugly and exploitative, ignoring much of what has happened over the last three days, falsifying other things. President Trump is a blowhard and a phony and a liar. Kelly isn’t. He brings prestige and a lifetime of military service to every remark.

Strike that: Kelly wasn't, until he was, and now he is. Nothing changes, until it does.

You can say Kelly took the job, like others, because "they're doing their best for the country" or whatever. But many people have bailed on this administration because it had gone too far some how. In other words, Kelly could have chosen this point to make a statement and take a stand. Heck, saying something mealy-mouthed and non-committal would be better than this. Instead, he chose to reiterate and amplify Trump's message and methods. Don't let Kelly off for this.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:05 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

corb: And that's a totally different statement, even though it's saying the same thing. Because the one is heartfelt and the other isn't.

Exactly - he sounds like a used car salesman who is talking to the media after one of his "previously driven" cars caused a fatal crash because cheap brake pads failed and the driver couldn't stop in time. "They know what they were getting when they bought that car."
posted by filthy light thief at 2:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Corb said it much better than I did.
posted by schoolgirl report at 2:10 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

> The problem isn't that Trump said that a fallen service member knew what the oath he swore meant. The problem is that Trump is a graceless buffoon who can't sound compassionate if he tried.

This is true, but beside the point -- Kelly was the one speaking today, not Trump. Kelly's desire to stay in his position, whether it's motivated by wanting to be one of the "adults in the room" so he can minimize the amount of damage Trump can do, pure careerism, or something else, isn't a valid excuse for what he did today. He went far above and beyond in terms of attacking Trump's critics, to a very dark place. Trump didn't do that. John Kelly did.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [38 favorites]

he's no smedley butler, that's for sure
posted by entropicamericana at 2:16 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Honestly - we did. At least I did, and the guys I served with did. We were all very aware that we could die, that signing up for the military meant we could die. The closer to combat, the more it was true. Infantrymen never get tired of telling you they expect to die.

I'm guessing most infantrymen don't tell that to their kids and parents much, though. I'm guessing Sgt. Johnson didn't end every phone call or email to his pregnant wife with, "Bye, honey, and remember, I could get slaughtered anytime! Have a great day!"
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:16 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

miyabo-if you're talking about who I think you are I'm so sorry. My husband was friends with the people who owned the Lava Lounge (and the Cockpit) way back when and I swear when we would go visit them I could tell he was around by the hairs standing up on my neck. He's a disgusting...I don't even know what.
posted by Bacon Bit at 2:20 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

No leftist, "dirtbag" or otherwise, should have the slightest sympathy for neoliberalism

Whoa boy thought you were going to say "misogyny" or "racism," was all ready with my favoriting finger
posted by schadenfrau at 2:28 PM on October 19, 2017 [37 favorites]

Racism is like the flu, it's everywhere and everyone has it. The right question is not "do you have racism built into your worldview", because the answer to that question is always yes. The right question is "are you working against the racism built into your worldview?"

I found myself thinking the other day about this - which I completely agree on - and the idea of "original sin." Being a born and raised filthy heathen myself, I don't have a great understanding of how religious folks interact with this concept; most of my knowledge is from a more academic perspective and from hearing religious folks identify themselves as sinners.

But it interests me that plenty if not most of those folks who are willing to vocally identify themselves as these flawed beings with regards to honoring Jesus' teaching are resistant to the idea that they may be carrying about this inclination that they need to watch out for, fight against, and potentially atone for. Not to swing at religious folks at all - I doubt they're any more or less likely to have the default racist American programming. Just to say that this group already has a worldview that seems like it would well lend itself to this sort of introspection and openness to accepting the flaw we all manifest.
posted by phearlez at 2:32 PM on October 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

Confession: every time my phone plays one of the notification jingles from one of the varied news agency apps I've downloaded my heart skips a beat and a little ray of hope shines from the horizon. I just know one of these times it will be "Mueller report drops. Charges pending against 2Scoops."

Even though it hasn't happened yet, the knowledge this time is inevitable gets me past all of the shitburger headlines I've had to read in the last 10 months.
posted by Fezboy! at 2:44 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Kelly was not, is not, and will not be on our side in restraining Trump. His job is not to contain, but to facilitate and empower. And now he is using his dead son to wrap Trump's fascism in the flag. I don't understand those who see anything but evil from him. His service and his son's sacrifice do not change who and what he is.

TOP TRUMP OFFICIAL JOHN KELLY ORDERED ICE TO PORTRAY IMMIGRANTS AS CRIMINALS TO JUSTIFY RAIDS
posted by chris24 at 2:47 PM on October 19, 2017 [75 favorites]

WRT universities and rental halls - what I would expect is that the universities would spin off the rental of their large, public halls into a private enterprise (the UMN, for instance, does this with a couple of buildings which have administrative space and public space). There are special rates for nonprofits and university entities, and because these are corporations, the university has (I assume, at least, never having tested it) a lot more discretion in terms of who they rent to. The remainder of university space is for university-associated orgs only.

At least, that's what I'd do if I were in charge of a public university, unless this whole "we are extorting $500,000-worth of services from you under threat of violence" routine with the neo-nazis drops out of fashion. My guess is that even as we speak, national university legal organizations have standing teleconferences about these issues.

I don't expect that what will happen is that every year these buffoons will take multi-million dollar bites out of land-grant college budgets. University presidents in general do not like these people - I'm not saying that university presidents are all wonderful human beings, full of egalitarian impulses, but as a broad generality, they are not crypto-fascists, and at least some of them are actively horrified by Trump and the alt-right.
posted by Frowner at 2:54 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

@chrislhayes
That was as revealing a look at Kelly’s own worldview and politics as we’ve seen.

@jbouie (Slate, CBS) replying to Chris Hayes
Abundantly clear that Kelly signed on with the Trump administration because he agrees with its priorities and basic view of the world.
posted by chris24 at 2:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [42 favorites]

Instead, he chose to reiterate and amplify Trump's message and methods. Don't let Kelly off for this.

He also lamented that women are not held sacred anymore, likewise self-less service, Gold Star families - even mentioned the convention - and then, without blinking an eye, went back to plotting how best to achieve the desecrator-in-chief's putrid agenda. Sure, we can't be certain he won't have a Petrov moment in his future, but I'm not holding my breath.

Let's see if Kelly's defense of Trump's phonecall ("very brave", "expressed himself as best as he could", elaborating multiple times that Kelly had to explain to him what to say) does not backfire by triggering Trump's very reliable sore spot of being infantilized or handled.
posted by ltl at 2:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm missing the relationship between these items. What is the theory here? Comey knows something huge is coming, so he's warming up his twitter feed?

I was looking more at the fact that Comey's dormant account started vague-twittering right after Trump started going after him again (as mentioned in the part of the quote you trimmed.) No idea what it means, but it seems notable that a major player in the investigation is suddenly broadcasting publicly on a new band. Maybe he's just sub-tweeting, maybe he's expressing remorse, maybe he's testing the mic.

West Point, New York, is "DC area" now?

Oh yeah, I guess it is a bit of a drive, huh? My Californian brain tends to lump all those non-NYC mid east coast places together, sorry about the inaccuracy.
posted by contraption at 2:59 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

God, I long for the halcyon days where I was only performing intelligence analysis on foreign governments.
posted by corb at 3:01 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

Oh yeah, I guess it is a bit of a drive, huh? My Californian brain tends to lump all those non-NYC mid east coast places together, sorry about the inaccuracy.

That's okay. Just take a quick drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back to clear your head, and you'll be back home in time for dinner.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:03 PM on October 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

Being woke ruins everything

Not quite everything. Every time I hear a man refer to his husband or a women refer to her wife I have the same rapid series of thoughts.

-Wait a second, that sounded weird, why did it sound weird?
-Oh right, my dumb homophobic brain still thinks people can only be married to someone of the opposite gender!
-Remember how fast things went from a ballot measure banning SSM in the state constitution to legal SSM being the law of the land? Hooray for progress!

Takes about one eye-blink but still brings a bit of a smile to my face.
posted by VTX at 3:04 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

To be fair it's more like the distance between where I live now and where I went to school, both of which have been known to call themselves part of "the Central Coast."
posted by contraption at 3:05 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I dunno, my Californian brain managed to figure it out...
posted by elsietheeel at 3:11 PM on October 19, 2017

Politico: Trump personally interviewed U.S. attorney candidates: "One potential nominee would have jurisdiction over Trump Tower and be in a position to investigate the Trump administration."

“It is neither normal nor advisable for Trump to personally interview candidates for US Attorney positions, especially the one in Manhattan,” Bharara tweeted Wednesday.

One of the candidates is a partner at the firm where Giuliani works, while another is at Kasowitz Benson Torres; Marc Kasowitz led Trump's legal team until this summer.
posted by zachlipton at 3:14 PM on October 19, 2017 [43 favorites]

The middle ground will likely be universities sharply limiting the rental or free use of their space to the extent that state law allows them to. Like, only events sponsored directly by a unit of the university (a school, department, center, etc) and not by a student or outside group can use the space.

This, btw, is what Texas A&M has done after Richard Spencer spoke there in December. From that article, it looks like even then, they made him pay some of the cost of security, though.

"The reason for the policy change is that the Spencer event last year put "an undue burden" on the university, Smith said. She noted that the event organizer had to pay rental and security fees but that the university had to provide additional police presence."

posted by threeturtles at 3:17 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Lest we forget, Kasowitz has clients with ties to the Kremlin.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:18 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Trump's treatment of families of the fallen 'sickens' Chuck Hagel

“I’m offended by the way he’s handled it,” said Hagel, who served as Defense secretary under Obama. Hagel, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, was also a Republican senator from Nebraska. “You just don’t use the families of the fallen to score political points, especially to take jabs at your predecessor. I’m very unhappy about this,” he said.

NPR News Interviews Gold Star Father Khizr Khan

When asked what was wrong with President Trump's remark to the widow of Army Sergeant La David T. Johnson, Khan said:

KHAN: "Everything. Every word is wrong. Every word is wrong. These men and women, my sons and daughters, signed up for something more than this president can comprehend. This is beyond his comprehension, patriotism, sacrifice. When John McCain sacrificed so much to serve this country, this president ran away. This president ran away from serving."

INSKEEP: "He did not serve in Vietnam."

KHAN: "He does not have the capacity to understand what it takes to serve this nation in harm's way. These men and women went, he, by default, he is their commander in chief, these are his sons and daughters, how dare he disrespect, how dare he utters a word of disrespect, indignity. There should be empathy, there should be support, there should be dignity of not only their sacrifice, but their family's sacrifice. Every word that should come out of his mouth should dignify those wonderful brave family members that now have to bear the burden of that sacrifice, but this nation dignifies them regardless of the behavior of the president, this nation honors them, honors their sacrifice, honors the sacrifice of those four brave men that went to defend our democracy, our liberty. This nation honors them, honors their families. They're the best of this nation."

posted by chris24 at 3:18 PM on October 19, 2017 [53 favorites]

Politico: Trump personally interviewed U.S. attorney candidates: "One potential nominee would have jurisdiction over Trump Tower and be in a position to investigate the Trump administration."

He's only got one question: "Will you recuse?"
posted by notyou at 3:19 PM on October 19, 2017

Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, found himself disgusted on hearing about the Trump call to La David Johnson's widow - and the way he's handled it since:

"I think the exchange that he had with this family and the follow-up was incredibly disgraceful and discouraging and depressing," said Baker.

posted by adamg at 3:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Something I've wondered since yesterday: why was one father offered $25,000? Why him?
posted by smb0626 at 3:27 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Because we elected a fucking game show host.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 3:28 PM on October 19, 2017 [77 favorites]

Because when he got the phone call from Trump he kissed Trump's ass and then complained about being broke because his ex wife was getting their son's death benefits.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

Something I've wondered since yesterday: why was one father offered $25,000? Why him?

In his call with Trump he complained that the death benefits were going to his ex-wife when he was in financial straits. Trump wanted to play Daddy Warbucks and pretend to help.
posted by chris24 at 3:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

Speaking of kissing Trump's ass, I'd like to note that it appears that all of the Gold Star families who WERE contacted by Trump, with the sole exception of La David T. Johnson's family, were Trump voters.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:33 PM on October 19, 2017 [21 favorites]

Raúl Carrillo & Jesse Myerson, Splinter: The Dangerous Myth of 'Taxpayer Money'

When Vice President Mike Pence flew home to Indiana earlier this month, it was to pull off a publicity stunt censuring protests against racist policing. Rather than dragging him for this, however, take after take after take zoomed in on a different offense altogether: Pence’s wasting of “taxpayer money.”

The writers in question may have told themselves they were hurting Pence by exposing his hypocrisy, but by using the “taxpayer money” frame, they were spreading, however unwittingly, a racist, sexist, classist myth. Although most of us pay taxes of some kind, every time we say “taxpayer money” we prolong the illusion that society depends on certain kinds of people so we can have nice things.

One quick exercise shows why. Picture a “taxpayer.” What does one look like? A homeless Black trans teen? An immigrant day laborer waiting on the corner? A young mom trying to cobble together enough income to feed her family, while languishing on the disability backlog? Unlikely. Let’s be honest: We know what sort of people “taxpayers” are supposed to be, and they’re not the ones we should be casting as the aggrieved parties. [...]

Not only is the “taxpayer money” frame damaging, it doesn’t reflect how public spending actually works. A household or a business may have to stash or borrow money before it can spend any, but we are users of the currency. The U.S. government, which is the issuer of the currency, works differently: Congress votes to spend “new money” on something, then the Treasury and the Federal Reserve credit the relevant bank accounts, and...that’s it. The government has spent new money into existence. Later, Congress may tax “old money” back out of existence, but it isn’t collecting money in order to spend it. It’s “offsetting” earlier spending. It may also offset spending by bumping student loan rates, policing for profit, or various other activities. Although Congress taxes everyday people too heavily, calling public money “taxpayer money” makes as much sense as calling it “student debtor money” or “suspicious driver money.”

Look at a dollar bill, and you will see the signatures of its creators: not taxpayers, but the public officials who let the taxpayers hold it in the first place. Money doesn’t grow on rich people. We should heavily tax the billionaire class so we stop living in an oligarchy, but we don’t need private capital for public spending. The federal government doesn’t confiscate dollars and redistribute them. It uses its legal power to create and destroy them.

posted by tonycpsu at 3:33 PM on October 19, 2017 [65 favorites]

There's more good stuff in that article tonycpsu linked to. It's not long, go read it!
posted by rabbitrabbit at 3:47 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The federal government doesn’t confiscate dollars and redistribute them. It uses its legal power to create and destroy them.

It does both but at the same time it doesn't need to. Without destroying dollars through taxation a typical country sees inflation and then hyperinflation (q.e.d Zimbabwe). Too much of a currency will drive up prices and most of us have fixed wages and you only get a raise every so often.

That being said, the US has so much of its currency wrapped up elsewhere in the worlds or in the 1%'s bank accounts that they print money like crazy and don't even dent the inflation rate or the interest rate.

It was the greatest economic mismanagement since Reagan's tax cuts to let record low treasury yields of 07/08 go to waste. We could have printed money like crazy and basically spent our way out of the recession. But instead we got deficit hawks fighting to turn the fucking pipe off during it instead. We barely put any counter-cyclical spending on the table and, well, recovery for the middle class lagged heavily.
posted by Talez at 3:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Representative Wilson responded to Kelly's remarks: “John Kelly’s trying to keep his job,” Wilson told POLITICO on Thursday. “He will say anything. There were other people who heard what I heard.”

I dislike Politico's framing of the article as Kelly "emotionally defending Trump", when in reality, he himself just attacked a Gold Star family who didn't like how his boss conducted himself. Appalling.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 4:07 PM on October 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

Charles Pierce: "Of all the 'generals,' Kelly always was the one closest to being a true Trumpian; his tenure at Homeland Security overseeing ICE showed that Kelly at least was sympatico with the president*’s Id-driven hardbar approach to immigration."
posted by homunculus at 4:11 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

I made the mistake of rewatching Kelly’s comments. How in the everlasting fuck does a man who reports every day to an admitted serial sexual assaulter dare complain about how “women used to be sacred”? Even ignoring the sexist framing (wtf), who the fuck does this wraith thinks he works for?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:12 PM on October 19, 2017 [49 favorites]

He thinks he works for Donald Trump. With all the racism, sexism, cruelty, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and willful cognitive dissonance that requires. And he's cool with it.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:19 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

If Trump turns everyone into dignity wraiths by Christmas, who will be left to make bold emotional claims next year?
posted by Glibpaxman at 4:20 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I’m sorry for all the “fucks” I’ve been flinging around today. Usually I strive for more eloquence. Today? I’m just fucking tired of their fucking shit.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

who the fuck does this wraith thinks he works for?

A guy who is going to make him rich. Once Trump's term is over and he acquires his share in Rosneft, he has promised to lavish material riches on those who supported him. Perhaps Kelly might even get a plum job in the new MegaTrum Co, which will become the nation's largest slumlord and gas station owner.
posted by cell divide at 4:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Is it possible that UF has taken one for the state-school team? Could spending that exorbitant sum on what turned out to be truly spectacular security theater* help future victims by providing them with evidence that the prohibitive cost is too much to bear and the court must find some legal remedy? After all, if he's allowed to continue to use this strategy, Spencer could target a state school with a smaller budget than UF's and effectively shut it down by scheduling a few repeat visits. Maybe the next school Spencer targets will have the courage to decline his invitation.

*Many helicopters overhead circling constantly all day (okay, some of those were media probably, but not all, and that background noise is very effective), several key blocks of the city's major north-south artery shut down all day and rendered a pedestrian mall, constant briefings and PSAs. And cops! cops were EVERYWHERE, all different kinds of them! Who even knew there were so many different coptypes? All very solicitous and kind, pointing us to where we could get water and smiling and generally being helpful. The result was that it felt completely safe, and there were people of color everywhere and LGBTQ people all having a blast. I mean, it's early, yet, and who knows what will go down in town tonight, but at the venue the only nazi who got punched to my knowledge is that guy in the picture, and he had been, according to report, running around all day trying to activate somebody's fist so that he could put his chin in front of it and be photographed. A+++ nazi rally; would picket again.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:30 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Yeah, the "women used to be sacred" and the Trump "very bravely" called parts of Kelly's remarks seem to have gotten lost in a lot of the reporting. And that's a shame. Kelly was born in 1950. During the time he thinks women were sacred, as Talia Lavin has been explaining to assholes on Twitter all afternoon, it was perfectly legal and common to, for example, pay women less for the same work, refuse to hire women for certain jobs, fire women if they got married or pregnant, and deny them credit unless a man co-signed. And it's not like sexual harassment and assault are newfangled problems that didn't exist then either. "Women used to be sacred" is the kind of thing that only a guy who signed up to work for a man who admitted to sexual assault on tape can say with a straight face.

Anyway, it's looking like they're going to pass this awful budget resolution, with House conservatives being seemingly willing to just pass the Senate bill as is (the Senate bill will likely be passed later tonight) instead of going to conference so that they can move on to tax cuts sooner.

And Sen. Cochran once again voted the "wrong way" and had to be corrected: "Awk tonight: Cochran said "Aye" to Rand Paul amendment cutting $43B from approps budget before aide corrected him. Cochran then voted no." This is extremely sad, but someone needs to step in here, because this is not an acceptable way to be deciding how to spend trillions of dollars.

I also want to recommend Max Fisher's Myanmar, Once a Hope for Democracy, Is Now a Study in How It Fails, both because it's an instructive case study on democratic norms and institutions, and because it's a major global crisis we all stopped talking about because there've been too many other crises competing for attention.
posted by zachlipton at 4:34 PM on October 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

Maybe the next school Spencer targets will have the courage to decline his invitation.

maybe the next school spencer targets will have the courage to say, ok, come on in - by the way, if you have any problems, i'm sure you know how to dial 911 - hopefully we can get to you on time

the courts have ruled that the government has NO obligation to protect someone with police forces - reflect that this logic has played out against leftist people many times - reflect that if that's how it's done against us, it can be done against the nazis, too - and maybe reflect that if the government isn't here to protect us, well, what the hell is the purpose of it, then?

hint - it certainly doesn't seem to be discouraging nazi rallies, at least in florida
posted by pyramid termite at 4:43 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

women used to be sacred

That has to be a dig at Trump, right???
posted by miyabo at 4:48 PM on October 19, 2017

That has to be a dig at Trump, right???

After today there is no reason to believe that anything Kelly says or does is intended to do anything other than protect Trump and keep him in power. As a human being you want to ascribe something good to Kelly but it. is. not. there.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

Women were literally never sacred, but maybe for the women who were subjected to the oracle at delphi, and their lives were also shit.
posted by lauranesson at 4:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

"Women used to be sacred" is the kind of thing that only a guy who signed up to work for a man who admitted to sexual assault on tape can say with a straight face.

It's such a gross loaded cloying cliché on so many levels I can't even. I'm sure he sits around and blathers about "women are nobler than men" and "mothers are saints" and "angel in the house" and "putting them on pedestals" and all manner of icky dehumanizing smarmy bullshit. It's vicariously embarrassing to hear someone who was a teenager in the 60s talk like a character in a bad summer stock production of Life with Father.

"Women are sacred," blech. I'm going to make a point of being EXTRA SPECIALLY profane for the next several days just to wash the sickly sweet taste of that shit out of my brain, so fuck you, Kelly, you fucking fuck.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:54 PM on October 19, 2017 [83 favorites]

I yield the remainder of my “fucks” to FelliniBlank.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [58 favorites]

Let this image from the UF protests inspire you today.

Ok, jumping ahead so I'm not sure if I'm repeating another poster, but it look like the punch actually pushed the nazi's head into the face of the nazi behind him, which means it qualifies for a full Double Nazi Punch. This is some Captain America level shit.

And remember people, you don't need to punch a nazi with a right hook, you could also use a tolerant left.
posted by stet at 4:56 PM on October 19, 2017 [69 favorites]

"Women used to be sacred" coming from a fucking military dude takes on a real sheen, too, when one considers the forever use of rape as a war tactic. Come on with that already. All right, bro. I'm sacred, so you should probably start listening to what I am saying.
posted by lauranesson at 4:57 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

CIA Director Mike Pompeo gave a speech at a conference today. First, he said he wants the CIA to "become a much more vicious agency" in fighting adversaries, which is frankly terrifying.

But he also lied about his own agency's findings on Russian interference in the election:

“The intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election,” Pompeo said at a security conference in Washington.

His comment suggested — falsely — that a report released by U.S. intelligence agencies in January had ruled out any impact that could be attributed to a covert Russian interference campaign that involved leaks of tens of thousands of stolen emails, the flooding of social media sites with false claims and the purchase of ads on Facebook.

The intelligence community's report explicitly did not make an assessment on whether Russian meddling impacted the outcome of the election. Many people asked whether his comments represented a change in policy, but the CIA tried to clean up his mess, stating that ""The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed,” said the spokesman, Ryan Trapani, “and the director did not intend to suggest that it had.”"

So either Pompeo doesn't understand an incredibly important aspect of the report about one of the most important things his agency has to deal with, he doesn't agree with it, or he deliberately lied about what it said to try to make his boss look better. Take your pick, none of them are good.
posted by zachlipton at 4:58 PM on October 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

I'm probably a bad person in many ways and my poor impulse control is ample reason why I should never be put in charge of something the size of a public land grant university, but if I were in charge of one of these institutions and had to foot the bill for Spencer's shenanigans I'd be sure to highlight the role the instigating group played in the debacle.

Spencer doesn't just get to invite himself to these universities, he generally has to be invited to give a speak under the auspices of an existing campus group. Now most of these groups are probably not explicitly organized to promote white supremacy, but given that they don't seem to have much of an objection cozying up to it, as an administrator I probably would not be above arranging to have the front page of the school paper report on my plan to increase season football ticket prices 50% in the following school year in order to cover the costs incurred by the university while hosting the controversial speaker invited by the State University College Republicans, led by club officers Thad McPoloshirt and Ashley VanTrustfund. Any funding collected in excess of the need to cover costs from the Spencer visit without cuts to academic programs can be earmarked to bring in speakers representing the diversity of the student body. Because we're all about free speech, right?

Let's see how many more right wing campus groups want to sign on to be Spencer's trolling sponsors after a few of those.
posted by Nerd of the North at 5:00 PM on October 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

Not all heroes wear capes: Per pool, a man just mooned the presidential motorcade.
posted by PenDevil at 5:04 PM on October 19, 2017 [65 favorites]

Mooning is never not funny. I'm having a much needed giggling fit. Butts lol.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:07 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

That has to be a dig at Trump, right

I'm taking it as a clear signal that there isn't anyone of honour left (if there ever was) inside the adminstration; Kelly is the "adult" in the room only in the sense that he has more self control than Trump; otherwise he's just his own mix of the vile stew of self-interest, bigotry, misogyny, and crapulence that makes up everyone around Trump.
posted by nubs at 5:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Spencer doesn't just get to invite himself to these universities, he generally has to be invited to give a speak under the auspices of an existing campus group.

That's not the case here. He was not sponsored by a campus group (like the Milo Y. events) but contacted the university about renting space. He tried the same thing at Michigan State Univ.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Not all heroes wear capes: Per pool, a man just mooned the presidential motorcade.

trump's mirror!!
posted by pyramid termite at 5:10 PM on October 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

Stet, that kid in the blue shirt is probably not a nazi, just an innocent moshpit casualty, if he even got tagged at all. And I can't find anyplace where the nazipuncher gets made. It took two seconds to find out that the nazi is named Furniss and he's from Idaho. But the person in the olive sweatshirt? May be the Batman.
posted by Don Pepino at 5:12 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Not all heroes wear capes

Apparently, not all heroes even wear pants.
posted by greermahoney at 5:12 PM on October 19, 2017 [30 favorites]

John Kelly Is Sad Women Are No Longer ‘Sacred.’ Women Are Not That Sad. Trump’s chief of staff is missing the point.

Kelly, however, seems to be missing the point of this conversation, which is that many women have no desire to be treated as separate and “sacred.” They simply want to be acknowledged as human beings who deserve basic respect and equality.

And things weren’t so great when women were supposedly treated as “sacred.”

Kelly was born in 1950, meaning when he was “a kid growing up,” women couldn’t legally get an abortion or open credit cards in their own names. They also did not have access to the morning-after pill, couldn’t always get birth control if they weren’t married, could not marry other women, were not allowed to fight on the front lines and had little recourse for workplace sexual harassment. Marital rape was not illegal. And Kelly was born before the civil rights movement, meaning he grew up in a time when people of color, particularly women of color, did not have the same freedoms he did.

This imaginary era of “sacred” womanhood included plenty of discrimination against women; they just couldn’t always talk about it. The biggest change between then and now is not in the way men treat women but in the position women occupy within society. Since the 1950s, women have entered the workforce in droves. They have become breadwinners, CEOs and politicians. And they have become increasingly vocal about their experiences with sexual violence and discrimination, including in the Marine Corps, where Kelly served as a general.

posted by homunculus at 5:12 PM on October 19, 2017 [48 favorites]

Not all heroes wear capes: Per pool, a man just mooned the presidential motorcade.

trump's mirror!!

I'm sure that dude's ass is far more friendly and gracious than Donald Trump.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

I keep misreading "women used to be sacred" as "women used to be scared", and it still makes logical sense as a thing these assholes would complain about. such fun times we live in.
posted by palomar at 5:25 PM on October 19, 2017 [43 favorites]

I'm sure that dude's ass is far more friendly and gracious than Donald Trump.

More giving. More receptive. Considerably less full of shit. Better hair, too.
posted by MrVisible at 5:30 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

I keep misreading "women used to be sacred" as "women used to be scared", and it still makes logical sense as a thing these assholes would complain about.

If Kelley was a Democrat and we were Republicans we might be able to make something of that.
posted by rhizome at 5:30 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Obama stumped for Northam in Richmond tonight
posted by rhizome at 5:33 PM on October 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Vice, Hear Trump’s judge pick admit he discriminates against gay people [cw: it's pretty much just hate speech behind this link]. He believes that Hobby Lobby means that an "honest conviction" is enough for employers to discriminate and they need to have prayer meetings at the Department of Justice.

So, um, apparently urgently necessary action item: call up your Senators and ask them to oppose Jeff Mateer's judicial nomination.
posted by zachlipton at 5:36 PM on October 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

I apologize for the above misquoting, as it appears he said, "Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor," as regards some invented super-white past. He has never listened to a person who happens to be a woman in his entire life, it seems. I, for one such person, feel like I've had the shit kicked outta me this last year in particular, with no recourse and certainly no one of a conservative bent trying to make me feel any better. I don't even say what I think on any public forum more public than this one. I am silenced and hurting and sure, yeah, still sacred, as much as anyone else is. And I have it better than literally most everyone in the world, because we all know he means that [white] women were sacred, which word seems to mean both "undisturbed but by the men who own them" and "oh, also, white, because non-white women are not sacred pedestal virgins." Ugh. Sorry. I'm erupting. Gonna go have some ice cream or something.
posted by lauranesson at 5:37 PM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

He has never listened to a person who happens to be a woman in his entire life, it seems.

sure, you don't listen to things. people can be holy, if you believe in that nonsense, but only objects and events are sacred. so he's consistent! you don't listen to hallowed ground, you just lower your voices and bow your heads while you step on it. you don't listen to a sacred relic; you put it under glass and punish anyone who touches and profanes it without permission. not its permission, that would be silly. yours.

the best part of it, though, is he couldn't even be bothered to say women used to be held sacred, as creeps usually do phrase it. instead he said women themselves used to be sacred -- better, purer, finer. so it's not that men stopped being chivalrous, it's that women stopped deserving it.

which is both a compliment, and more honest than pricks like him are usually are able to be. but he sure doesn't know it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:47 PM on October 19, 2017 [59 favorites]

Trump Rot gets everyone in the end. Kelly lasted longer than most.
posted by Anonymous at 6:15 PM on October 19, 2017

I’m guessing Kelly already has his handmaid picked out, in anticipation for when women are sacred again.
posted by um at 6:16 PM on October 19, 2017 [31 favorites]

Big shakeup at the DNC.

In a move that exacerbated the vast intra-party rift exposed during last year’s presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has stripped a number of longtime party officials of their “at-large” delegate status or leadership positions, while appointing a slate of 75 new members that include Clinton campaign veterans, lobbyists, and neophytes.

...D.N.C. spokesman Michael Tyler defended the chairman’s appointments. “This year's slate of at-large DNC member nominees reflects the unprecedented diversity of our party’s coalition,” he said in a statement to NBC News. “This slate doubles millennial and Native American at-large representation, provides unprecedented representation for our allies in the labor community, and increases the presence of Puerto Rican at-large members at a time when the Trump administration refuses to take responsibility for the millions of Americans who are still suffering through a major humanitarian crisis.”

posted by xyzzy at 6:17 PM on October 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

Why not simply charge the speaker or his financial backers for the cost involved due to their inflammatory speech?

Not a good precedent. Last year Republican state legislatures looking to shut down Black Lives Matter protests were proposing bills to make protestors pay for the cost of policing.

Not to mention just how much police love to inflate their overtime.
posted by srboisvert at 6:24 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has stripped a number of longtime party officials of their “at-large” delegate status or leadership positions, while appointing a slate of 75 new members that include Clinton campaign veterans, lobbyists, and neophytes.

I read the article and while there will be plenty for people looking to be outraged to be outraged about it's so inside baseball that I don't necessarily think that's justified. First, so much of the top tier Democratic campaign staff and political operatives worked on Clinton's campaign that it would be shocking if some of them weren't on the slate. Second, I (and probably the vast majority of people reading the article) have no idea how typical it is to shakeup the superdelegates. Is the number greater than or less than usual? We don't know. And lastly, it seems disingenuous to lambast them for appointing campaign veterans as same ol' same ol' and simultaneously call out installing neophytes.

"Sanders loyalists and Ellison supporters were among the officials ousted amid an ongoing intra-party feud" is weak sauce. Were among? Yeah, I'm sure they were. Were primarily Sanders peeps replaced? Or was it a broad swath of people and some of them like Zogby (good riddance) happened to be among the bunch?

Who knows.
posted by Justinian at 6:33 PM on October 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

To give equal airtime, the spokesman's defense is also impossible to put in context. The slate doubles the Millenial and Native American representation? Great! From... 2 to 4? Or from 10% to 20%? Those would be vastly different things? Who can say? Not the spokesman apparently.

Unless you're involved in party politics I think folks are better off focusing on what they can do for 2018 than sweating in-the-weeds stuff like Sanders supporter Joanne Dowdell being replaced by media lobbyist Barbara Casbar Siperstein as a superdelegate.

...

...

Oh wait, it's Barbara Casbar Siperstein being replaced by media lobbyist Joanne Dowdell. How could I have made such a mistake? And if you say you caught that (unless MAYBE you had just closely read the article 30 seconds before my comment) you're a lying liar.
posted by Justinian at 6:38 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

I found this article about the DNC shake-up and ones I read at The Hill and other places to be similar in tone and rather confusing, so I posted it here in hopes that someone with more inside baseball knowledge than I would comment. My first instinct is that a bunch of long-time DNC folks are getting all het up over being replaced and are complaining to journalists, but I'm just not familiar enough with the workings of the DNC to know if that's true.
posted by xyzzy at 6:38 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'd like to help with your understanding xyzzy but I'm too busy being aggro.
posted by Justinian at 6:41 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Seems like it's an empirical question. Were more of the people ousted Bernie supporters, and were more of the people installed Clinton supporters? I agree we don't know, but that doesn't mean it's unknowable -- presumably the data are out there. It's certainly inside baseball, but in most democracies it is generally agreed that the direction a party takes and the makeup of its leadership does matter to its members, and there are genuine strategy and policy disagreements between the Bernie and Clinton factions.
posted by chortly at 6:42 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm sure that dude's ass is far more friendly and gracious....

If I had a dollar for every time someone called my ass friendly and gracious...
posted by some loser at 6:43 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wearing swastikas? You better believe that’s a paddlin'.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:51 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

The Senate passed the budget resolution 51-49 (Paul voted no). If passed by the House, it would allow for a $1.5 trillion tax cut and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with only 50 votes.
posted by zachlipton at 6:53 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

A 1.5 trillion tax cut that sunsets in 10 years, yes? Since they didn't manage to throw everyone off Medicaid to fund the tax cuts?
posted by Justinian at 6:57 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh wait, it's Barbara Casbar Siperstein being replaced by media lobbyist Joanne Dowdell. How could I have made such a mistake? And if you say you caught that (unless MAYBE you had just closely read the article 30 seconds before my comment) you're a lying liar.

Perhaps not the best example to choose, since Siperstein (whose name I had forgotten, but whom I had read about before) was the first elected transgender member of the DNC when appointed in 2012. She was ousted today while Perez's spokesman touted "the unprecedented diversity of our party’s coalition" and she commented "I can’t speak for Tom, but you talk about diversity — I’m extremely diverse: Jewish, veteran, transgender, lesbian, grandparent, small-business owner."
posted by chortly at 6:57 PM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Let me put that another way. I know the Republicans included calls for spending cuts in the budget in order to fund the tax cuts, but they have to actually pass the spending cuts before they can pass the tax cuts permanently with 50 votes... if I understand things correctly. You can't just say "yeah we'll cut 1.5trillion in spending trust us" and pass the Byrd bath.... I think.
posted by Justinian at 6:59 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

From Zachlipton's link about Trump's judicial nominee Jeff Mateer:

I would bring a $100 bill and I would say, “Alright, first person” — and everybody has their iPhone — and I would say “first person to find in the Constitution the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ gets this $100 bill” .… And you know what — and everybody knows that, right? — that phrase isn’t in the U.S. Constitution. It’s nowhere.

What a slimy, mendacious jerk. I'm Australian and live in Australia and never studied in the US and even I know that the phrase which appears in the First Amendment to the US Constitution is "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion". And I typed that out from memory before checking it because that's how well-known a phrase it is, that I remember it from merely casual reading.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:06 PM on October 19, 2017 [71 favorites]

I'll need to know the weights and specific Progressive Formulas we're using before I can make a decision about whether this slate of delegates is good or evil. For example, Symone Sanders worked for Bernie, but then worked for Clinton, so we'll have to decide whether we want to measure Candidate Devotion based on on days worked for a candidate, hours spent on TV, words said in favor of them, or perhaps something else. Where does long-time DNC membership fit in? Like, if you're a fan of Ellison but you've also been in the DNC for fifteen years, how should we weight being a member of The Establishment versus supporting a Progressive Hero? Young people are obviously more progressive and better overall, but if they worked for Clinton does that eliminate Youth Bonus Points entirely or what? Also what weighting functions are we using for Perceived Enthusiasm, will we also be including time and effort devoted to supporting Approved Progressives or Neoliberal Scumbags on the local and state levels, and are we going to incorporate Social Media Post Frequency or should we use that as a tiebreaker?
posted by Anonymous at 7:07 PM on October 19, 2017

Lawrence O'Donnell is doing an extended opening piece on the revolting racism of Kelly's remarks about Rep. Wilson.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

Yeah they won't cut spending unless they find a way to punish poor people; they'll just run up the deficit. Specifically, the resolution allows them to "increase the deficit by not more than $1.5 trillion" over 10 years.

Judge orders Trump administration to allow abortion for undocumented teen

Just an update on this story. The government appealed, and the DC Circuit has scheduled an emergency hearing for Friday morning (audio of which will be livestreamed at the request of the press, in a first for that circuit). She has already obtained court permission for the procedure (Texas requires parental consent or a court order), completed a "pre-abortion counseling appointment" (another Texas anti-abortion requirement), and obtained an order from a different court ordering the government to allow her to go, in case you're wondering how many hoops she's had to jump through so far.

This is your regularly scheduled reminder that only one party makes people's private medical decisions into national spectacles.
posted by zachlipton at 7:10 PM on October 19, 2017 [51 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell is doing an extended opening piece on the revolting racism of Kelly's remarks about Rep. Wilson.

And the misogyny and hypocrisy. So at least a few TV folks are managing to resist the hagiography of this dick.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell has been rock solid lately about calling out racism, misogyny, and lies.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:28 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Miami Herald, Frederica Wilson says John Kelly lied from the White House podium. In which Kelly attacked her over her remarks at the dedication of an FBI building to two fallen law enforcement officers in 2015, but his story makes no sense. He claimed all she talked about was how she "got the money" for the building instead of remembering the agents, but she wasn't even in Congress when the contract was signed, and the legislation she sponsored was actually a last-minute effort to name the building after the agents.

And she points to a much more important question:

“Why do you think they [The White House] are continuing all of this?” Wilson said. “Think about what they should be doing. They should be trying to find out why Sgt. La David Johnson was separated from his battalion for two days.”

posted by zachlipton at 7:31 PM on October 19, 2017 [65 favorites]

“Why do you think they [The White House] are continuing all of this?”

Hint: _acism and misog_n_
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:34 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Thank you for standing strong, Rep. Wilson. May the jackals in this administration learn from your example.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:36 PM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Ok, O'Donnell is about to go on GWB in a second, time to reup this comment I made 6 Scaramuccis ago.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:41 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Every time my mother sighs wistfully and says she'd like to have a beer with GWB I remind her that he's a recovering alcoholic and that he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people because Saddam tried to "kill his dad." I also have to remind myself of these things because he seems like a master statesman with a genius level IQ in comparison to Orange Twitler.
posted by xyzzy at 7:47 PM on October 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

He claimed all she talked about was how she "got the money" for the building instead of remembering the agents.

Oh yes, he claimed she was all braggy about how she got the money just by calling up her BFF Barack Obama.

Which is in no way a massive dogwhistle.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:50 PM on October 19, 2017 [26 favorites]

Bush made a ton of incredibly terrible mistakes, including trusting many really horrible human beings who wanted to take advantage of his naivete. But it's hard to listen to him and not think that he's really trying to do what he thinks is best. Trump, on the other hand, is just pure avarice.
posted by miyabo at 7:58 PM on October 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

I'll need to know the weights and specific Progressive Formulas we're using before I can make a decision about whether this slate of delegates is good or evil. ... so we'll have to decide whether we want to measure Candidate Devotion based on on days worked for a candidate, hours spent on TV, words said in favor of them ... how should we weight being a member of The Establishment versus supporting a Progressive Hero? ... Also what weighting functions are we using for Perceived Enthusiasm, ... and are we going to incorporate Social Media Post Frequency or should we use that as a tiebreaker?

I realize that post was meant in jest, but political scientists do devote quite a lot of attention to measuring a single stable feature -- ideology -- and even within parties, there are ideology measures that are consistent across multiple measurement modalities (self-reported, policy questions, voting records, etc). Ideology is not just something that pertains to D vs R, but also exists within parties, as most parties worldwide themselves acknowledge. It's a weird feature of the intra-Democratic conflict recently that one of the two factions claims that there is no meaningful ideological difference between the two sides. There most certainly is, both on policy and on strategy, as measured by self-reports, policy questions, voting records, donation patterns, and many other things. This is something almost all political scientists agree on, and also something most parties in most democracies acknowledge of themselves (that they have internal left and right flanks). It's an oddity of our own intra-party disagreement that the very existence of a stable intra-party ideological difference is under dispute, but absent that dispute, the answer to the measurement question is the same as ever: just measure folks' ideologies, and then ask whether more left-leaning folks were replaced with more centrist folks.

[To clarify, I don't mean to suggest that centrist=bad, leftist=good; possibly even the opposite. But the original question was not whether the DNC changes were good or evil, but whether they were distinctively pro-centrist, or just a more standard unideological shakeup.]
posted by chortly at 7:58 PM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Ok so we're doing this...

@realDonaldTrump: The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!

I'm sure it's just a total coincidence that it's the black woman who is "wacky," but the "total lie" he's been claiming is the same stuff Kelly said Trump said. And she wasn't "SECRETLY" on the call; she was in the car at the request of Sgt. Johnson's family, and the phone had been put on speaker.
posted by zachlipton at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2017 [58 favorites]

Keep digging, Trump! There must be a bone down there somewhere!
posted by mmoncur at 8:05 PM on October 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Wowee, when they declared National Character Counts Week, they really meant "week." The whooooooooooooooooooooole goddamn week, all five (or maybe seven! who knows?) consecutive days of it.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:05 PM on October 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Thank you for standing strong, Rep. Wilson. May the jackals in this administration learn from your example.

I'd prefer weak jackals, but ymmv.
posted by some loser at 8:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Paul Ryan will never act to save the world from a malevolent insane person with the power to destroy humanity, but at least he'll make some stupid godawful roast jokes about him. Nice to see that this year's Al Smith dinner was only marginally less disgusting than the last one. God Ryan you suuuuuuuck

Julia Manchester, The Hill: Ryan roasts Trump: I 'scroll Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend that I didn't see'

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) roasted President Trump at the annual Al Smith dinner in New York on Thursday night, joking about how he copes with the president's use of Twitter.

"Every morning, I wake up in my office and scroll Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend that I didn't see later," Ryan told the dinner's attendees.

"I know last year at this dinner Donald Trump offended some people with his comments, which critics said went too far," Ryan said, referring to the 2016 charity event the month before the election where Trump got booed for his sharp-edged jokes about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

"Some said it was unbecoming of a public figure and that his comments were offensive," Ryan continued. "Well, thank God he's learned his lesson."
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:08 PM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Bush made a ton of incredibly terrible mistakes, including trusting many really horrible human beings who wanted to take advantage of his naivete.

NOPE. He is an adult. Do not buy into that. Do not get tripped up in revisionist history. He was terrible and intentionally so.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:09 PM on October 19, 2017 [46 favorites]

Even if someone I knew and agreed with politically tweeted something like, "The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congressman [pickone](R), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!" I would unfollow that person for their inability to string together words correctly.
posted by perhapses at 8:11 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Bush made a ton of incredibly terrible mistakes, including trusting many really horrible human beings who wanted to take advantage of his naivete. But it's hard to listen to him and not think that he's really trying to do what he thinks is best.

He's saying some nice words. What else he DID this week was fundraise for the most racist campaign of 2017, so forgive me while I don't take his calls for cleaner political rhetoric at face value. Let's fucking stop with the Bush hagiography already. Not preaching outright hate speech from the White House is a low bar, and it's pretty much the only one he managed to clear.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:11 PM on October 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

Not preaching outright hate speech from the White House is a low bar, and it's pretty much the only one he managed to clear.

baby steps. gotta crawl before ya ball.
posted by some loser at 8:14 PM on October 19, 2017

I mean that I get that it's easy to think of Bush as competent considering the horrorshow we have now, but it was NOT LIKE THAT. Remember that. Do not consider the W presidency as a bar you would like this current admin to meet. I remember eating a burrito and falling asleep early in 2004 election night and when I woke up Ohio had shit the bed and then it was 4 more years of despair. No one sane at the time shrugged it off like eh, another 4 years of him. Bush was fucking awful, you guys.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:16 PM on October 19, 2017 [62 favorites]

Every morning, I wake up in my office

1. You sleep in your office?

2. Don't you supposedly work out for 90 minutes every morning?
posted by elsietheeel at 8:17 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Paul Ryan is a feckless coward, a toady, a fraud.
Am I doing roasting right?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:22 PM on October 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

I can't think of a single person I've ever been aware of that I thought was as disgusting as I think DT is. Someone above said that they were alarmed by their newfound capacity to hate (I am paraphrasing) - I am alarmed too. This trump guy is just so flat-out disgusting on so many levels... it is an uncomfortable paradigm-shift for me. I haven't even come close to hating a person, certainly since early adulthood, let alone anyone I have never had any kind of personal interaction with... ugh
posted by Golem XIV at 8:23 PM on October 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

My paradigm shift is that I am no longer ok with being quiet about racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. I was in a work meeting 2 days ago for technology with 16 men and 3 women and I just couldn't help myself making a remark about the gender disparity in the room.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [21 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!

Riiiiiiiight.
posted by supercrayon at 8:29 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

1. You sleep in your office?

He actually does. He's one of the many, many Congresspersons who save money by not renting a home in the DC area. It's called the "cot club."
posted by xyzzy at 8:33 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

1. You sleep in your office?

A lot of congresspeople claim to sleep on a cot in their office to save money and also show how they're not getting too cozy down there in D.C. because their hearts are back in The Heartland™. I never believed that shit for one second. Maybe for young new congress members who have yet to ride the gravy train but there's no way Ryan can't afford, and actually have, an apartment, even with D.C.'s sky-high rents. I just don't believe him, not at all.
posted by dis_integration at 8:35 PM on October 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

Where do they shower? Do senators do this? Are Hart and Dirksen your college dorm after hours?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:35 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

They shower at the gym. I've seen too many pictures of their "cot" rollouts (blow up beds, actual cots, sleeping bags) to not believe them.
posted by xyzzy at 8:37 PM on October 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

I was under the impression that they were all still sharing houses like a congressional frat.

But also there's a Senate gym, right? With a swimming pool that was for nude male use only up until less than ten years ago?

I assume the House has a gym as well. That must be where they shower. And where Ryan does his workouts after he wakes up in his office and reads Twitter.

Yeesh.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:40 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Regular habitation in locations not designed for such can be a huge safety problem. I'm sure that zoning laws don't come in to play when it is the US congress.
posted by yesster at 8:40 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I just don't believe him, not at all.

That doesn't matter, all that matters is that their spouses believe them.
posted by rhizome at 8:42 PM on October 19, 2017 [32 favorites]

wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call

It sure was a personal call, for Rep. Wilson. She was the elementary school principal of Sgt. Johnson's father and has known this family forever. Trump's attacks are liable to get much, much uglier if he finds out some of Wilson's history:

Rep. Frederica Wilson didn’t flinch at Trump’s attacks. Her record explains why.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:44 PM on October 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

You can say Kelly took the job, like others, because "they're doing their best for the country" or whatever.

Kelly's integrity knew what it was getting into when he signed on.
posted by Coventry at 8:44 PM on October 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

The Virginia Governor’s Race Is a High-Stakes Test for Trump: GOP candidate Ed Gillespie has adopted the president’s Neanderthal messaging.
posted by homunculus at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Maybe for young new congress members who have yet to ride the gravy train but there's no way Ryan can't afford, and actually have, an apartment, even with D.C.'s sky-high rents. I just don't believe him, not at all.

The congressional offices get bigger and nicer with seniority. As Speaker, Ryan probably has nice digs. Freshman representatives get their office assignment by lottery, some are stuck with real turds.
posted by peeedro at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2017

Buckle up, Trump is never going to let a black woman score points on him, it's gonna be a bumpy weekend.
posted by rhizome at 8:48 PM on October 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

Every time my mother sighs wistfully and says she'd like to have a beer with GWB I remind her

GWB was terrible and all that. Fully agree. Surely this and wendell and on and on. I remember.

But, jeez, it's every fucking day with the DTs in the white house, and, look, I need that beer, and I don't much care who I gotta drink with anymore.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:49 PM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Oh not only does Ryan have a nice office since he's become speaker, but it was completely renovated before he moved in because it fucking reeked of Boehner's cigarette smoke.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:56 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Bush years, at least starting from 2003, was exactly like Trump's presidency, except with a higher killcount. Does no one remember the "Bushitler" insults, the prominent anti-war movement, the divisiveness of Red State vs. Blue State? Don't normalize Bush to villainize Trump, lest one day you end up with a future president that will use you to normalize Trump to villainize him. Have standards.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:09 PM on October 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

I think most of us here remember the Bush years pretty well. It was not "exactly like Trump's presidency". It was terrible and filled with awfulness but two things can be terrible in different ways, or one thing can be terrible and yet be less terrible than another thing. Or less terrible in some ways and more in others.

It's important not to forget what happened under Bush but those years were not much like this year much less exactly the same.
posted by Justinian at 9:28 PM on October 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

Mod note: I am debating whether rehashing W's presidency is more or less irritating than rehashing the primaries but either way let's skip it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 9:46 PM on October 19, 2017 [40 favorites]

Russian Journalist Masha Gesson gave an hour long interview on Australian radio this morning. She's on a book tour promoting The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.

She talked about the weirdness of Trump's cabinet lining up to each make a public affirmation of love and loyalty for Trump, because she'd seen such public loyalty pledges in Soviet Russia. That could be the poliburo, she remarked, and she'd never seen anything like it in America until Donald Trump. She continued by talking about what she calls government by mafia. They're running the government like the mafia, where loyalty to the family is the most important thing. Hence Trump's obsession with loyalty.
posted by adept256 at 10:19 PM on October 19, 2017 [43 favorites]

She talked about the weirdness of Trump's cabinet lining up to each make a public affirmation of love and loyalty for Trump, because she'd seen such public loyalty pledges in Soviet Russia.

It definitely seems similar, but I almost think in most cases it's a GOP loyalty thing and not a Trump loyalty thing. It's like it's less cult of personality or fear of reprisal from Trump and more that the GOP will never ever ever admit that they made a mistake even though half of them can't stand the guy. It feels like they're acting like enablers to him to keep from having to get their own house in order and/or out of a reckless need to still grab the tiger of the hardcore deplorable base by the tail thinking they're in control, and he's the kind of person who will zero in on enabling behavior and push even a reluctant enabler to ever greater lengths to get everything he can out of them. Maybe the Soviet analogy I'd go with is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, where the GOP political establishment is appeasing Twitler for their own ends and he'll have no qualms about going all Barbarossa on them as soon as it's advantageous for him.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:41 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

They're running the government like the mafia

Yes . . . "like"
posted by Sys Rq at 10:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

> Because I promise you this can be applied to more causes than Nazis. There are a lot of noble causes some people still find "inflammatory".

See the ACLU's fight with the FBI over their list of "Black Identity Extremists."

We say black lives matter. The FBI says that makes us a security threat. The government is labeling activists as “black identity extremists."

This past summer, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, which investigates terrorist threats from groups such as al-Qaeda, invented a brand new label and a brand new threat. In an intelligence assessment written in August but first disclosed by Foreign Policy last week, the FBI designated a new group of domestic terrorists: “Black Identity Extremists,” or BIEs. The report broadly categorizes black activists as threats to national security. It uses unrelated acts of violence, such as the July 2016 shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, as justification for targeting black dissident voices. And it labels black activists — whose central demands are that government officials be responsible stewards of their power, accountable to the people who elect them and transparent about decision-making — as a threat to national security.

According to sources close to the FBI, the term “Black Identity Extremist” didn’t exist before the Trump administration. But while the designation is newly manufactured, the strategies and tactics behind it are not. For anyone who remembers how the FBI used extrajudicial means to target civil rights leaders and other activists through COINTELPRO, the pretext is clear: Neutralize people or organizations whose attitudes or beliefs the federal government perceives as threatening.

posted by homunculus at 10:55 PM on October 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

I'm curious about the upcoming primary season if Bannon is more than a damp squib - Trump loyalist Bannon is openly going after the McConnell power center of the party with Trumpist candidates and it's clear from miles away which side Trump himself will back, especially since he's still nursing a bruised ego for backing the establishment Strange over the Trumpist Moore and he also really really wants to stick it to Mitch. What does that even look like when the primary season starts rolling in earnest? Mitch's wing of the party still toeing the Trump line because the GOP will never disown him while Trump is actively campaigning against them? It might get real weird.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:13 PM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

it's clear from miles away which side Trump himself will back

This has gotten really really weird now. Politico had Trump offers support to GOP senators in Bannon’s cross hairs, in which Operation Make Nice With McConnell means calling up three senators Bannon is targeting and pledging his support. And the fact that was leaked to Politico is also clearly part of the operation.

I mean, it's Trump, so he'll probably wind up playing both sides depending on who is whispering in his ear at any given moment, but it's clear today anyway that he's got someone trying to use him to head off Bannon. Tune in tomorrow to see who he supports.
posted by zachlipton at 11:46 PM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

I realize that post was meant in jest, but political scientists do devote quite a lot of attention to measuring a single stable feature -- ideology --

it is understandable that you may have not heard the high-pitched whining noise made by The Point as it whizzed far above your head--I too have difficulty hearing faint sounds when I am focused on spinning up a good Well Actually.
posted by Anonymous at 12:02 AM on October 20, 2017

My hairdresser has many family members in Puerto Rico. I was struck by a few things as I spoke to her. She has elderly relatives who were sleeping in their car. I asked if their home was destroyed. She said no, but it was flooded, and there were mosquitoes, and it was very hot, and they didn't have screens on the windows, because they'd used ACs.It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around that. Your house has become this sweltering mosquito breeding ground.

It was a situation where she clearly wanted to avoid being political, so I tried to express my support without being all WHO CAN I KILL FOR YOU like I wanted to. She said quietly, "Not many people around here ask me about it." I don't know what that's like, to have many people you love suffering, and people around you not knowing.

She gave several detailed descriptions of problems, and I was all, 'but we practically invaded Haiti' and did blah blah and she said gently and firmly, 'But that was a different president." And I shut up, because it was her life and workplace. But oh man.
posted by angrycat at 12:24 AM on October 20, 2017 [50 favorites]

Arizona Daily Star: Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio loses bid to have his criminal record wiped clean

Saying the president can't erase facts, a federal judge on Thursday rejected a bid by former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to have all record of his criminal conviction wiped out.

Susan Bolton said she already dismissed the criminal contempt case against Arpaio following the decision by President Trump to issue a pardon. That saved the former sheriff, who had been found guilty, from the possibility of going to jail for up to six months.

But Bolton rebuffed Arpaio's claim that the pardon also entitled him to have the entire conviction erased.

"The power to pardon is an executive prerogative of mercy, not of judicial record-keeping," Bolton wrote, quoting earlier court precedent.

"The pardon undoubtedly spared defendant from any punishment that might otherwise have been imposed," the judge continued. "It did not, however, revise the historical facts of this case."

posted by christopherious at 12:54 AM on October 20, 2017 [82 favorites]

The pardon was appalling, now watch them push for revisionism. There is no history before year zero.
posted by adept256 at 1:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Who started the ‘Melania Trump body double’ conspiracy theory? Look no further

Well, now. To be honest, I had feared the process of creating conspiracy-based fake news would be a lot more inconvenient – I was concerned I’d have to go to that Macedonian town and hang out with the emo teens or whoever it was whose fake news farm skewed the US election for the Russkies. But I needn’t have worried. It turned out to be something I could do in a few moments while exiting South Kensington tube station.

posted by mumimor at 3:17 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

Trump erroneously links UK crime rise with 'spread of Islamic terror'

Is he tweeting out Fox headlines again? Or did he come up with this twisted gem himself?

As it says in the article, the stats exclude "the 35 people killed in the London and Manchester terrorist attacks, and the 96 Hillsborough deaths in 1989 – a decision reflecting the rarity of the tragic incidents."

The British far-right needs no extra encouragement. Truly, truly hateful.
posted by doornoise at 4:48 AM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Senate Approves Budget Plan That Smooths Path Toward Tax Cut, Thomas Kaplan, NYT

The Senate took a significant step toward rewriting the tax code on Thursday night with the passage of a budget blueprint that would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster.

The budget resolution could also pave the way for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration by ensuring that drilling legislation can pass with only Republican votes.

Despite having full control of the government, Republicans have so far been unable to produce a marquee legislative achievement in the first year of President Trump’s tenure, putting even more pressure on lawmakers to succeed in passing a tax bill. The budget’s passage could keep Republicans on track to approve a tax package late this year or early in 2018.

As early as next week, the House plans to take up the budget blueprint that the Senate approved on Thursday by a 51 to 49 vote. Doing so would allow for the tax overhaul to move ahead quickly.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan will need most House Republicans to back the blueprint without changes; in the Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican to vote against the measure on Thursday, in protest of what he deemed excessive spending. If House Republicans were to insist on negotiating a compromise that melds the Senate and House budget plans, tax legislation could be delayed.

College's bell tower trolled white supremacist with black national anthem, Andrea Diaz and Nicole Chavez, CNN

Laura Ellis, a music professor at the university, went up 11 flights of stairs in the school's carillon tower on Thursday to play "Lift Every Voice and Sing," also known as the black national anthem.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" was first written as a poem in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson as part of a celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday at the all-black Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida.

Johnson, a civil rights activist, was also the school's principal. Johnson's brother, John Rosamond Johnson put the poem to music.

The song was later adopted by the NAACP as its official song in 1919. It became a staple during the civil rights movement and remains a musical tradition in social, political and religious events in the African-American community.

...Ellis said she felt very safe even when more than 2,500 demonstrators were walking through campus on Thursday.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 4:55 AM on October 20, 2017 [57 favorites]

We are off to a roaring start this morning. Sheriff Clarke, he of the 10 gallon hat and the chest covered in fake medals, is making fun of Congresswoman Wilson wearing a red 10 gallon hat and calling her a buffoon.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:11 AM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

So, apparently ICE started a rumor that the CA wildfires were started by an immigrant, which Breitbart et. al. picked up and ran with, forcing the Sheriff to release a statement on the matter.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a press release yesterday that was inaccurate, inflammatory, and damages the relationship we have with our community.

Hmm, wonder where they got the idea to do such a thing? (Hint: the answer is currently the President's Chief of Staff.)
posted by xyzzy at 5:33 AM on October 20, 2017 [44 favorites]

Sheriff Clarke, he of the 10 gallon hat and the chest covered in fake medals, is making fun of Congresswoman Wilson wearing a red 10 gallon hat and calling her a buffoon.

Congresswoman Wilson wears hats as a remembrance of her deceased grandmother. Not to pretend to be the Commandant of Applebees.

Rarely seen in public without a hat, the congresswoman’s showpieces began making regular appearances some 30 years ago as a tribute to her namesake Bahamian grandmother, Frederica.

“[My grandmother] wore hats and gloves. I just wanted to be like her, so I started wearing hats.

posted by chris24 at 5:36 AM on October 20, 2017 [47 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell is doing an extended opening piece on the revolting racism of Kelly's remarks about Rep. Wilson.

I was so confused by this that I actually went and tracked down the full text of Kelly's remarks and...where are people getting this from? References to Wilson are pretty generic:

I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and broken-hearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife, and in his way tried to express that opinion -- that he's a brave man, a fallen hero, he knew what he was getting himself into because he enlisted...

It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me...

And when I listened to this woman and what she was saying, and what she was doing on TV, the only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go and walk among the finest men and women on this Earth...

...But it eroded a great deal yesterday by the selfish behavior of a member of Congress.

How in the world is any of that racist? He seems angry at what he views as an intrusion on privacy, not at the race of the representative involved, of which there are not even coded references to..
posted by corb at 5:44 AM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

CNN: College's bell tower trolled white supremacist with black national anthem

This headline is a particularly egregious form of garbage journalism. It is Trump's Mirror.

Trolling is intrinsically disruptive and divisive behavior. Playing Lift Every Voice and Sing in this manner is...not. Exactly not.

If it disrupted anything, it only disrupted ongoing divisive behavior, itself. And only by virtue of the fact that such behavior cannot thrive where unity is actively affirmed.

That is not trolling. That is trolling's antidote.

Shame on CNN.
posted by perspicio at 5:48 AM on October 20, 2017 [56 favorites]

Corb, you stopped reading too soon, before the gross and false story Kelly told about Wilson:

I'll end with this: In October -- April, rather, of 2015, I was still on active duty, and I went to the dedication of the new FBI field office in Miami. . . .

And a congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money -- the $20 million -- to build the building. And she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.

posted by FelliniBlank at 5:51 AM on October 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

Oh please corb. He's accusing her of being sneaky, rude and selfish by offering her support to the wife of someone she's known all her life in the part you excerpted

AND THEN THE MOST IMPORTANT PART YOU LEFT OUT

he draws a direct line from her behavior there to this section:

And a congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money -- the $20 million -- to build the building. And she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.

So don't be meretricious and pretend it's an unreasonable conclusion to reach.
posted by winna at 5:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [23 favorites]

How in the world is any of that racist? He seems angry at what he views as an intrusion on privacy, not at the race of the representative involved, of which there are not even coded references to..

Generic? He spent a huge part of his talk repeatedly attacking her with lies.

1) He lied about her eavesdropping on the conversation. Plus, he was listening in the same as her, but unlike him, she was invited and included by the family and had a close personal relationship with Johnson.

2) He never uses her name but throughout dehumanizes her by calling her an "empty barrel."

3) He lied about her actions at the FBI building dedication.

4) He dogwhistles about her calling Obama to get the money for the building. Which of course never happened.

None of this would be happening if she wasn't a black woman. Pretending otherwise is head in the sand denialism. And this doesn't even mention all the other offensive, sexist, fascist, and bullshit things he said.

Did you watch Lawrence?
posted by chris24 at 5:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [67 favorites]

I would bring a $100 bill and I would say, “Alright, first person” — and everybody has their iPhone — and I would say “first person to find in the Constitution the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ gets this $100 bill” .… And you know what — and everybody knows that, right? — that phrase isn’t in the U.S. Constitution. It’s nowhere.

Bravo, Mr. Mateer. That's some excellent judiciarying. Now, in the same spirit of good-faith debate, I wish to address all those who believe the Constitution grants them the right to own guns. I will give a $100 bill to the first person to find the word "gun" in the Constitution.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:56 AM on October 20, 2017 [75 favorites]

You also need to consider the offensive tone of voice in which Kelly spoke about Wilson, which was textbook Aggrieved White Dude. Seriously, someone needs to make an educational supercut of how these chucklefucks sound when talking about and to people (and especially women) of color juxtaposed with them going off on white adversaries and critics because there is an audible difference.

I wish there were a hell because hell for these guys would be an eternity of having to sit mutely and listen to defiant black women reclaim their time.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [47 favorites]

Guys, I'm starting to think Kelly was never an adult in the room after all.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:09 AM on October 20, 2017 [55 favorites]

Reminder of other data point: Kelly told Trump Mexico was on the verge of collapse like Venezuela: report
posted by armacy at 6:18 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Sorry, didn't mean to leave that out - it was talking about Miami, which isn't Rep. Wilson's district, so I assumed he was talking about another incident where a congressional representative did not show respect at a memorial.
posted by corb at 6:23 AM on October 20, 2017

I'm trying to keep the conversations in my house Trump-free except for the most egregious incidences (which still take up time every single day Jesus), but last night my husband was like, "Man, Kelly really set people straight!" I ignored this until he didn't then shut up. My husband is a white Southern man who was right-leaning but generally apathetic for most of his life. Smart as hell, but grew up dismally poor and is mostly self-taught, and as you know, we are soaking in a stew of bad ideas down here. In our 10 years of marriage he has slowly become what passes for liberal here and has begun to enthusiastically vote for whatever is least conservative. Not sure he even realizes that I've dragged him ever left-ward. But he wouldn't SHUT UP about Kelly's speech. Finally I snapped. "He's a FUCKING LIAR WHO HAS DRUNK THE KOOLAID AND NO ONE IS GOING TO SAVE US." He sat there on his phone a while and when I asked him what he was doing, he said, "Research." Then he came to me and simply said, "You're right." (Well no shit.) Anyway. That's how Kelly is playing for people who just hear the speech uncritically, even if they despise Trump. It is maddening and I just wish it would all fucking stop.
posted by thebrokedown at 6:25 AM on October 20, 2017 [105 favorites]

Noah Berlatsky, Pacific Standard: Democrats need to stop chasing mythical centrists and start fighting voter suppression: Instead of worrying about crafting the perfect centrist ideology, then, Democrats should focus on making sure people who identify as Democrats get to the polls.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:27 AM on October 20, 2017 [58 favorites]

Ari Berman, Mother Jones: Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump

After the election, registered voters in Milwaukee County and Madison’s Dane County were surveyed about why they didn’t cast a ballot. Eleven percent cited the voter ID law and said they didn’t have an acceptable ID; of those, more than half said the law was the “main reason” they didn’t vote. According to the study’s author, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Kenneth Mayer, that finding implies that between 12,000 and 23,000 registered voters in Madison and Milwaukee—and as many as 45,000 statewide—were deterred from voting by the ID law. “We have hard evidence there were tens of thousands of people who were unable to vote because of the voter ID law,” he says. [...]

Neil Albrecht, Milwaukee’s election director, believes that the voter ID law and other changes passed by the Republican Legislature contributed significantly to lower turnout. [...] “I would estimate that 25 to 35 percent of the 41,000 decrease in voters, or somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 voters, likely did not vote due to the photo ID requirement,” he said later. “It is very probable that between the photo ID law and the changes to voter registration, enough people were prevented from voting to have changed the outcome of the presidential election in Wisconsin.”

posted by tonycpsu at 6:32 AM on October 20, 2017 [44 favorites]

FelliniBlank: Notice how he spent the whole "explanation" talking about male soldiers and "wives" and then said that "women used to be sacred." Yeesh!

Beyond the patronizing, minimizing use of "sacred," the fucking gall of Kelly to talk about women being "sacred" while promoting the hateful shit spewed by the proud pussy grabber in chief.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:43 AM on October 20, 2017 [38 favorites]

Who is working on combating voter suppression?
It seems like ensuring that people who want to vote can vote is an important issue.
How can I help?
posted by MtDewd at 6:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

This might have been covered previously, but remember when Congress "handcuffed" Donald Trump on Russia and made him sign sanctions back in early August?

Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin sent a letter (PDF) to President Donald Trump late last month expressing concern that his administration had not yet implemented new sanctions against Russia that he signed into law on August 2.

The letter refers to Turkey's efforts to purchase an air defense system from Russia, which might have violated the law.

Oh, and the deadline to implement those sanctions was October 1, and Trump blew it off, with little media coverage that I've seen. Most articles laud congress's efforts in August to hold Trump's feet to the fire, and forgot to follow up on the actual implementation of those sanctions.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:51 AM on October 20, 2017 [40 favorites]

it was talking about Miami, which isn't Rep. Wilson's district,

Well, if you look at a map, her district actually does include a sizable chunk of Miami.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 6:55 AM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

OH SHIT FOLKS MCCAIN IS EXPRESSING CONCERN

SURELY THIS
posted by entropicamericana at 6:57 AM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

Who is working on combating voter suppression?

Jason Kander's new group - Let America Vote

Eric Holder and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:00 AM on October 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

Eleven percent cited the voter ID law and said they didn’t have an acceptable ID

I was really shocked by how exactly your id has to match your voter registration if you want to vote. Like, if you moved and haven't updated your address they won't let you vote, like they're afraid of someone with a common name going around and voting in every precinct. If your middle name is spelled differently on your id and on your voter registration, you can't vote.

Also, as I found out when getting my WI license last month, they don't do the logical thing which would be to allow you to register to vote *when* you get your id (there should just be a checkbox on the form that says: register my ass to vote yo) so that you can be sure they both match up. In fact I'm not even sure how someone registers to vote in WI without going online. They certainly don't mention anything about it at the DMV which is where I registered to vote in every other state I've lived in.
posted by dis_integration at 7:00 AM on October 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

While other groups work to combat voter suppression and overturn voter ID laws, Vote Riders is working on a parallel effort to make sure voters everywhere are informed of their local ID requirements and helping folks get their identification sorted out ahead of elections.
posted by duffell at 7:10 AM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

They've now brought Kelly out to the press briefing to explain that he suggested Trump not call the families of fallen soldiers and that Bush and Obama didn't call all the families. But that Trump "very bravely" did make calls to the four families of those killed in Niger. Yes, he really said "very bravely." Kelly says Trump "expressed his condolences in the best way that he could."

It's worth remembering that, although NPR didn't seem to notice in their gushing over his performance -- and hey, guys, you used that very word, so get a clue -- Kelly is essentially confirming the family's story, and simply pleading that Trump meant well.

It's also worth remembering that Trump has long since lost any right to the benefit of the doubt.
posted by Gelatin at 7:14 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

There's no plan. It's been months, and there's no plan.

They're like Cylons, only with more design flaws.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:16 AM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

The Fall 2017 Issue of Columbia Journalism Review is devoted to Trump. A few of the bylines are from prominent journalists and editors.

Articles
* A note from the editor by Kyle Pope

* Can the First Amendment save us? by Lee C. Bollinger. ("It took a long time for the press to gain freedom and respect in America. Now both are in peril.")

* When all the news that fits is Trump by Jill Abramson. ("Great reporting is how the “failing” New York Times has answered (and benefited mightily) from the president’s attacks. But the paper’s former executive editor warns of the pitfalls of the Trump bump.")

* Trump and the Watergate effect by Margaret Sullivan ("Will young journalists still be inspired by today’s watchdog reporting?")

* Best press he’s ever had by Lloyd Grove. ("To tabloid reporters in New York, President Trump was known simply as Donald. A former gossip writer for the New York Daily News describes a complicated—and profitable—relationship.")

* The Jared bubble by Kyle Pope. ("What my 18 months as Jared Kushner’s first editor taught me about the Trump family and the press.")

* The queen of spin by Hannah Seligson. ("How the president’s daughter plays the press")

* Covering a country where race is everywhere by Collier Meyerson. ("While race, and racism, have always been part of political coverage in America, Trump has thrust them both onto center stage")

* What if the right-wing media wins? by McKay Coppins. ("Conservative critics of the press want more than just a louder voice. They want The New York Times and The Washington Post to go away.")

* The victims of fake news by Nina Berman. ("Conspiracy theories thrive online, but their consequences are real. Just ask these people.")

* The Trump-Russia memos by Josh Neufeld. ("A graphic account of the so-called “dossier” that had the media world buzzing.")

* The Trump Conundrum by Regina G. Lawrence and Amber E. Boydstun. ("Reporters struggled with how to write about one of the most unconventional presidential campaigns in US history. A new analysis shows why.")

* A crisis of relevance by Janine Gibson. ("Even if the media’s financial and technological problems were fixed, does the news still matter?")

* The 10 best days in journalism by Pete Vernon. ("A play-by-play of what some call “the last great newspaper war.”)

* Making media literacy great again by Michael Rosenwald. ("A basic understanding of where news comes from is back on the syllabus as students navigate an increasingly bewildering media environment.")

* The Trump Bump by Meg Dalton, Karen K. Ho, and Pete Vernon. ("How covering Trump has changed the careers of some of journalism’s hottest names.")

* ‘Put the camera down’ by Peter Sterne and Jonathan Peters. ("Covering protests has become the riskiest job in journalism.")

* The 140-character president by Mathew Ingram. ("Donald Trump’s Twitter feed has become a news service for political junkies. It’s also raised a tangle of new ethical and legal questions for reporters covering the White House.")

* The White House briefing room gets its 15 minutes by Jon Friedman. ("It’s cramped, has only 49 seats, and is a maze of wires and cables. But never, in its nearly 50 years of existence, has it been as central to a presidency as it is today.")

* Viewfinder by Vanessa M. Gezari.

Also:
* Trump’s threats amount to a First Amendment violation [This is about Trump's threats against NBC and the NFL.]
* ‘Emotionally disruptive’ Trump takes toll on those who cover him
posted by zarq at 7:20 AM on October 20, 2017 [79 favorites]

"Trump's off-script statement stunned top agency officials...." Really? Here in year approximately 4 million of this regime, when "off-script" statements and tweets are freaking daily, you're STUNNED? Honestly. A random selection of my Facebook "friends" could be gathered and told to run the country and they would look like dang old brilliant statesmen compared to every last person in our current ruling party. And I have mostly hard drinkers and cats as my Facebook friends.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:27 AM on October 20, 2017 [29 favorites]

Whether John Kelly came out yesterday in service to Trump, the country, or both, I believe this was not a speech he wanted to give. Was this his idea or did Trumo force him? I don't know. But I do think he thought it would put the mess to bed. But no, Trumo just can't let someone have the last word, and he didnt even wait a day:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!
7:53 PM · Oct 19, 2017

So his CoS throws himself on his sword and Trump comes back and throws him under the bus.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:29 AM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

This morning I heard a news story that said immigrants had been picked up in the area the demo walls are being built. Which made me think that it would be awesome if some enterprising folks took it upon themselves to dig some holes under or through the demo walls. Which made me think I would kickstart that project. Which made me think that realistically the government (if they were serious about this wall) should pay people to do that the same way security firms will pay hackers to find vulnerabilities in their systems. And by then something pulled me out of my musing and I realized anyone coming anywhere near the demo walls will probably be shot on sight and no questions asked then or later. Oh well.
posted by jermsplan at 7:33 AM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

("Will young journalists still be inspired by today’s watchdog reporting?")

God I hope not, it's been terrible. Oh, you mean learn what not to do? Sure, that sounds good.
posted by Melismata at 7:34 AM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

There's no plan. It's been months, and there's no plan.

There's no emperor!

Also wasn't the opioid crisis one of the million things on the Kush's to-do list? He's kinda been tied up...
posted by elsietheeel at 7:34 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Also, as I found out when getting my WI license last month, they don't do the logical thing which would be to allow you to register to vote *when* you get your id (there should just be a checkbox on the form that says: register my ass to vote yo) so that you can be sure they both match up. In fact I'm not even sure how someone registers to vote in WI without going online. They certainly don't mention anything about it at the DMV which is where I registered to vote in every other state I've lived in.

Fear not, our garbage legislature in NC is fighting to take away that ability so it's even harder to vote.

People who say that voting doesn't matter, please notice how vigorously the trash fires are fighting to prevent us from doing so. That surely means THEY know it's important.
posted by winna at 7:41 AM on October 20, 2017 [35 favorites]

Ugh, I feel so ill after everything that's happened this week. So much lying and false information coming from what's supposed to be the most prestigious office in this country, about such sensitive and personal issues. And we're not even 3 full weeks away Las Vegas, while California burns...October has been a month from hell so far.

I would really like a big ol scoop o' clock this afternoon. This depressed nation needs some ice cream to cheer up and I'd really like some hard-hitting Wapo/NYT/TPM etc stories with some hard facts/evidence that can actually hurt this administration. Like move-up-the-pace-from-months-to-weeks til we get to some pardons/impeachment proceedings that get this mafioso cabal the fuck out of power. So let's hope for one, hell maybe even 2 scoops of bombshells to drop on this friday afternoon. (It's not my birthday but it is my brother's so I'll selfishly make this wish on his behalf. I think he'll approve.)
posted by andruwjones26 at 7:41 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

So his CoS throws himself on his sword

How did Kelly throw himself on his sword? He came out and lied about a black congresswoman, insulted a gold star family, and topped it off with some sexism. How is any of this his sacrifice?
posted by Mavri at 7:42 AM on October 20, 2017 [37 favorites]

(not to abuse edit window I didn't even mention Puerto Rico, jesus christ how awful is everything now)
posted by andruwjones26 at 7:43 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

So his CoS throws himself on his sword

He threw his dead son on his sword.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:48 AM on October 20, 2017 [37 favorites]

Serously, andruwjones26, this week has been fucking rough and I'm not even experiencing the pain of so many others. MAKE IT STOP.
posted by mynameisluka at 7:48 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

"There's no emperor!"
The emperor has no brain!

Also, this is totally off-topic at this point but I didn't see this comment last night: "...hint - it [wildly exorbitant cop display at nazi rally] certainly doesn't seem to be discouraging nazi rallies, at least in florida..."
Yesterday's Florida nazi rally was like seven nazis trying to rally around and through 2,000 screaming neoyippies. It was a tragedy of a rally, despite the fact that every official channel tried to discourage any non-nazi from showing up at it because "if you ignore them they will go away." Au contrare, they knew they were not going to be ignored and they knew they were going to walk into something that looked like Mosul, so no fun opportunities to curbstomp anybody or drive through crowds, therefore they stayed away. The nazis have had one successful rally recently, that being Charlottesville. After that one, they don't seem to have been able to rally very effectively, because they no longer have the element of surprise. Boston, San Fran, and now Gainesville. The nazis are no longer showing up at their own rallies, and those that do tend to get serially snuggled and smacked by the subaltern and end up having an embarrassing experience. If the University response had been, "Okayden, show up and good luck to you," they may have showed up in greater numbers and caused more mayhem. As it was, they were outnumbered by eight gajillion cops, and this happened: http://www.gainesville.com/news/20171020/three-charged-in-shooting-after-spencer-talk. I've been on the fence about Fuchs about a lot of aspects of this, but I'm going to go ahead and chalk that one up as evidence that the shock and awe part was exactly right and he responded to the threat correctly. He did what he had to to protect the students. And now the next rally at a school will have three fewer murderous psychos in attendance.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:56 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

He threw his dead son on his sword.

Yes, that's much better. I'm not defending Kelly, I'm saying saying that Trump couldn't even appreciate the cover Kelly was giving him for 24 hours before throwing him under the bus.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:56 AM on October 20, 2017

This isn't great. Seems like congress is just an organ that exudes tax cuts at this point, all other functions being vestigial. The congressional GOP doesn't give a shit about any other duties and is happily cede all of them to the dictator executive.

Politico: Trump nominees show up for work without waiting for Senate approval
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:59 AM on October 20, 2017 [44 favorites]

Yesterday, David Fahrenthold linked on Twitter to Chris Jones' deeply moving 2008 longform Esquire article, "The Things That Carried Him." There was a mefi post about it at the time it was published.

The 17,000 word article tells the true story of Sgt. Joe Montgomery's death in Iraq and his nine-day journey home to Scottsburg, Indiana to be buried. It's written in reverse chronological order, starting with his funeral and traveling back in time to the moment when he was killed in Baghdad. Along the way, we learn about the ritualized details involved in transporting a deceased soldier home, and the effort various people put in to making sure both his body and sacrifice are treated with a measure of dignity.

If you haven't read it before, I highly recommend it.

More info:

Esquire interviewed Chris Jones about the article for that May '08 issue.

If you would like to dig deeper, Neiman Storyboard has an annotated version with comments and interview answers from Mr. Jones.
posted by zarq at 8:07 AM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

This isn't great. Seems like congress is just an organ that exudes tax cuts at this point, all other functions being vestigial. The congressional GOP doesn't give a shit about any other duties and is happily cede all of them to the dictator executive.

Yeah, this really illustrates how there's no mechanism for stopping the government from breaking its own laws. Don't want to go through Senate approval? Send them to work anyway! What's going to happen, the cops are going to show up?

Additionally, I think this points to upper class solidarity. If a working class person shows up at a job when they're not supposed to, they are barred. Upper class people won't call the cops on each other, even if they are nominally politically at odds.
posted by Frowner at 8:08 AM on October 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

Laura Ellis, a music professor at the university, went up 11 flights of stairs in the school's carillon tower on Thursday to play "Lift Every Voice and Sing," also known as the black national anthem.

I really like the "screw you, we're still here" theme of the Star Spangled Banner. But I would sign every petition and donate every penny I could afford if we had a serious shot at replacing the it with Lift Every Voice and Sing as the official national anthem. For a lot of reasons.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:09 AM on October 20, 2017 [28 favorites]

My Republican senators Grassley and Ernst are co-sponsoring the Murray—Alexander Individual Market Stabilization Bill, so today I'm obligated to call them up to thank them, and to express hope that they will continue working to prevent the President and Republican leadership from sabotaging people's access to affordable healthcare.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:13 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

From that TPM article on the Murray—Alexander Individual Market Stabilization Bill:

The dozen GOP senators supporting the bill argued Thursday that it would help lower premiums, save taxpayer money, and pave the road to full repeal later on.

“It’s just a placeholder until we can repeal Obamacare next year,” Graham told reporters.

bahaha
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:16 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

How did Kelly throw himself on his sword? He came out and lied about a black congresswoman, insulted a gold star family, and topped it off with some sexism. How is any of this his sacrifice?

First of all, there is no evidence whatsoever that he lied about Wilson. He said she listened in - which is true, albeit with permission- and he gave his impressions of an event he attended years ago - an event with no video or transcript. Kelly's impressions of the event are different than Wilson's - but it's worth noting that Wilson isn't even sure what she said, other than "not that." It is also highly likely that Kelly has a lower threshold for irritation over politicians self promoting even the smallest bit at memorial events, especially since his son died . And from my experience attending memorial events, they usually do, because they want you to vote for them. Politicians are not known for their humility, or they wouldn't be politicians.

There is not one word in that entire speech that insults a gold star family. Not one. I urge you to read it again.

What he did essentially say in that speech is: 'I was the one who gave Trump an idea about what to say. If it failed to comfort and made things worse, that is my failure.' That is the way military leaders fall on their sword, even when they know they haven't fucked up. It's essentially the "I failed to provide the right leadership to this soldier who just drove a goddamn truck through a fence." speech. I know. I've given that speech before. And Trump is absolutely worse on all levels than Private Schmuckatelli, because Private Schmuckatelli can learn. I foresee more speeches in the future.
posted by corb at 8:28 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Steve M. makes a connection that hadn't occurred to me: John Kelly is Bush's Oliver North -- a distinguished military man who the President is leaning on for reputation laundering purposes. Of course, like North, Kelly seems all too eager to flash his military credentials to deflect any criticism and cast critics as troop-hating traitors.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:30 AM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

WRT the Murray—Alexander Individual Market Stabilization Bill: there's a GOP "health care" bill called MAIMS? For reals?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:32 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

The fact that Kelly saw fit to disparage Wilson with an anecdote that had absolutely no bearing on the topic he was addressing is in and of itself an attack on a gold star family.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 8:32 AM on October 20, 2017 [43 favorites]

> He said she listened in - which is true, albeit with permission-

This is a shameful distortion of what was said.

Kelly:

It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me.

"Albeit with permission" is not something you can use to excuse someone who says they're "stunned" by the idea that someone "listened in." The "with permission" means that it is not stunning at all. The clear, unambiguous implication of Kelly is that she was an interloper, not a trusted ally.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:33 AM on October 20, 2017 [85 favorites]

First of all, there is no evidence whatsoever that he lied about Wilson.

Do you know what you are if you say something that, while technically containing no factual falsehoods, knowingly gives a false impression of the events you're discussing?

You're a liar, that's what you are. Or, if you won't go that far, you're a fucking scumbag and a bad, bad person.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:34 AM on October 20, 2017 [42 favorites]

Don't want to go through Senate approval? Send them to work anyway! What's going to happen, the cops are going to show up?

It's laughable to think these fucks will get arrested, but it is a crime to impersonate a federal agent and the idea of a bunch of concerned citizens just narcing on these guys to the FBI all weekend does sound kinda fun.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:35 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

There is not one word in that entire speech that insults a gold star family. Not one. I urge you to read it again.

Calling the widow of a soldier who has been slain in combat a liar is very damned insulting and disrespectful.

Kelly said: "That was the message. That was the message that was transmitted."

Except it wasn't the message that was "transmitted," most likely because Donald Trump is an incoherent, egotistical asshole. It may have been what Trump intended, but that's not how it came across. And rather than blaming the fucking politician, some humility and a goddamned apology to the woman whose husband was killed in action and whose name Trump couldn't even fucking remember would have been hell of a lot more respectful than Kelly digging in his heels, implying that a Gold Star Widow is a liar, and defending the indefensible.
posted by zarq at 8:35 AM on October 20, 2017 [47 favorites]

I mean, if that anecdote wasn’t specifically deployed to call into question the character of Wilson and by extension the widow she was defending, than what the hell was it mentioned for, Corb?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 8:36 AM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

There is not one word in that entire speech that insults a gold star family. Not one. I urge you to read it again.

He motherfucking blamed the Khans for Gold Star families having lost sanctity. Fuck him.

The whole point of this episode isn't that Trump is hurt and Kelly is defending him, rightly or poorly. It's that a Gold Star mother was hurt by Trump's words. And instead of focusing on that, trying to fix that, Kelly went out there to attack a black woman to distract from the true issue. Because the true issue reflects badly on the president. Because the true issue requires an apology to be fixed, an ability to admit a mistake was made. Both something Trump can't do. So instead a white man attacked a black woman to protect his fascist racist boss.
posted by chris24 at 8:37 AM on October 20, 2017 [92 favorites]

It is also highly likely that Kelly has a lower threshold for irritation over politicians self promoting even the smallest bit at memorial events, especially since his son died

If that were true, he wouldn't work for Trump. At this point it's becoming simple and unavoidable: if you work for Trump, you are not a decent and honorable person. If you had previously seemed to be decent and honorable and go work for Trump, it will turn out that this was only because nobody has specifically demanded that you do the outrageously contemptible things that Trump routinely demands people do, and that you must have always been willing to do if asked.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:39 AM on October 20, 2017 [48 favorites]

God it's like it's a fucking crime to acknowledge that some right wing asshole said or did something wrong, every time it's this full court press of trying to argue why you shouldn't be offended, how you're in the wrong for having your own feelings, and it's so goddamn sickening to see it deployed against this family.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:42 AM on October 20, 2017 [37 favorites]

So instead a white man attacked a black woman to protect his fascist racist boss.

It's more than that.

A retired United States Marine Corps general and the former head of both the US Southern Command and the Multinational Force West in Iraq and the former Secretary of Homeland Security for the United States of America just called the widow of a fallen soldier a liar on national television, from the podium in the White House briefing room.
posted by zarq at 8:43 AM on October 20, 2017 [113 favorites]

With the seal of the White House behind him.
posted by zarq at 8:44 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

It is also highly likely that Kelly has a lower threshold for irritation over politicians self promoting even the smallest bit at memorial events, especially since his son died

Did you just say this with a straight face about a man who works for Trump.
posted by Mavri at 8:45 AM on October 20, 2017 [47 favorites]

From the South Florida Sun Sentinel: Full video of Frederica Wilson's 2015 FBI speech shows John Kelly got it wrong
posted by kelborel at 8:46 AM on October 20, 2017 [61 favorites]

just called the widow of a fallen soldier a liar on national television,

Direct citation from the text absolutely motherfucking needed on this one.
posted by corb at 8:47 AM on October 20, 2017

Direct citation from the text absolutely motherfucking needed on this one.

Correction: implied. I gave you the "motherfucking" citation in an earlier comment.
posted by zarq at 8:48 AM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

corb why are you so set on digging your heels in and defending Kelly?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

The "empty barrel" talk, including "makes the most noise" has the smell of a double barreled dog whistle, both sexist and racist. It leans on the alleged intellectual superiority of white men, suggesting that empty headedness is a quality we expect to see in a black person or a female person. And a disdain for someone making too much noise suggests that it is more fitting (perhaps) and more their "place" (ick) for them to be quiet because they don't have the full right of expression that other people do.

(Yeah, I know that our service members don't have the right to make noise about politics when in uniform. But I don't think a deceased service member has the same restriction once they die.)
posted by puddledork at 8:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

Holy crap now there's video.

How's your day going, General Chief of Staff?
posted by notyou at 8:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

It is also highly likely that Kelly has a lower threshold for irritation over politicians self promoting even the smallest bit at memorial events, especially since his son died

If that were true, he wouldn't work for Trump.

Yes, this. Trump opened this presidency by standing in front of the memorial wall at the CIA and lying about how great he is. There is no ground to stand on with this argument.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [24 favorites]

I can’t wait to hear the tortured defenses when Mattis and McMaster are asked by Trump to attack a black woman.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:50 AM on October 20, 2017 [22 favorites]

corb why are you so set on digging your heels in and defending Kelly?

Mostly I think it serves as a reminder that when interesting times in the curse-sense makes for strange bedfellows, there's an emphasis on the "strange."
posted by Drastic at 8:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Honestly because it's frustrating me that people are misreading him, and by extension, the military, so badly. He would never have insulted a Gold Star widow, that's just Not Fucking Done, but that's how everyone is reading it. He's being circumspect by military standards and people are viewing it as insulting, and it makes me feel as though we will always be misunderstood, always be alien in our own country. And that makes me sad and frustrated, I guess. It's so clear to me that he's just trying to do the best he can in a shit situation, just like every servicemember does daily, and so I hate this..
posted by corb at 8:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Or, trying to live into the new userid:

corb, I value your presence here and think I get some of the trials you're facing. But part of the tragedy of this fucking year and this fucking administration and that fucking man is facing, over and over and over again, just how many fellow Americans are of low and contemptible character. People we know and thought decent and honorable turn to Trump and start spouting his horseshit. I know one guy who has always been a big Republican and during the primary campaign hated hated hated Trump... but now he's all "Of course Trump is a real conservative" and otherwise defending him and... it hurts. It hurts learning that someone you respect has the low character to knowingly lie about shit like that, because of course he knows better. And it hurts knowing that this means he's always been a person of low character, because character doesn't change that much and that fast (absent neural trauma or whatever, fine).

I can see how someone who'd been through hard service would have respected Kelly or Mattis. But I really do think, painful as it is, that you have to recognize that they too have abandoned you to help him do evil, and/or that their honor was just a pose. Everyone willing to work for Trump is a bad and dishonorable person, and that means they always were.

It sucks. Dealing with just how shamefully craven and dishonorable so many Americans are is something I don't think I'm going to get over, frankly.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [63 favorites]

On 1A this a.m. a guest referred to Trump's empathy problem and called it disappointing that the president made it into a fight yet again instead of simply saying, "Oh, no, I'm sorry I came across that way." That is the most amazing thing about it, because even if you didn't mean to cause hurt, you did, and wouldn't you first thing want to take away the hurt? Like, "god above, no, the last thing I want to do is make you feel worse, please, please believe me, I didn't mean it that way." But no, Kelly's right that things that used to be sacred are today profane. Comforting the grieving war widow is not Trump's sacred duty, it's just another thing he can make into a contest so he can "win." Yup, I'm definitely tired of all this winning we're doing.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:54 AM on October 20, 2017 [36 favorites]

Impact vs. intent. If we're misreading him then he needs to fucking change his message and/or system of delivery.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:55 AM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Full video of Frederica Wilson's 2015 FBI speech shows John Kelly got it wrong
posted by chris24 at 8:55 AM on October 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

He would never have insulted a Gold Star widow, that's just Not Fucking Done

i mean
the current Commander In Chief seems like a striking counterexample, and happens to be Kelly's boss
posted by halation at 8:56 AM on October 20, 2017 [58 favorites]

Honestly because it's frustrating me that people are misreading him, and by extension, the military, so badly. He would never have insulted a Gold Star widow, that's just Not Fucking Done, but that's how everyone is reading it.

He is attempting to erase a Gold Star widow by trying to put all the focus on Rep. Wilson and attacking her even though Rep. Wilson and the family that were on the call are all in agreement. It's one worse than insulting a Gold Star widow, he's being too cowardly to do it directly.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:57 AM on October 20, 2017 [51 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!

Kelly: It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me.

@realDonaldTrump: The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!

Representative Wilson did not lie about the content of the call, and was not listening to the call in secret, but the President and his Chief of Staff are working together to have us believe otherwise. Kelly lied in order to support the President's own lies. There is no defense of Kelly here other than to say that he was doing his job; his evil job.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:58 AM on October 20, 2017 [78 favorites]

Also the actual Gold Star widow and mother in question said they were offended...so why then double down on Trump not doing anything wrong? Even if he supposedly didn't mean to offend HE DID. Decent human beings APOLOGIZE at that point. They don't do what Kelly did. Jesus.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:59 AM on October 20, 2017 [56 favorites]

He's being circumspect by military standards and people are viewing it as insulting, ... It's so clear to me that he's just trying to do the best he can in a shit situation, just like every servicemember does daily, and so I hate this..

Corb, the video and news story about the Congresswoman Wilson's speech are here. Kelly either lied or let his desire to support Trump colour his memory. He is already a bad person for doing this. I cannot read his response to the mother's account as a morally neutral or virtuous "circumspect" approach. This is "how can I say that she's wrong without getting shit from the base?".
posted by maudlin at 8:59 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

> He would never have insulted a Gold Star widow, that's just Not Fucking Done, but that's how everyone is reading it.

Servicemembers and veterans are still human beings, who make mistakes. Things that are Not Fucking Done are, on occasion, done. You don't have to close ranks around this scoundrel just because he served with honor.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [35 favorites]

Who is working on combating voter suppression?

Spread the Vote helps people get voter ID. Virginia voter ID is immediately important for the upcoming Tuesday November 7 2017 Virginia elections. Also, per this newspaper article, Virginia registrars can create and provide one (voter ID) for free, either before election day or even on election day.
posted by jointhedance at 9:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

corb, I feel for you. You're a Republican with a military background, and now both your party and your leadership are showing how horrifyingly anti-human they are. Whatever honor or good faith they may have possessed in the past, they do not possess it now. That means your own identity is being challenged, and that's really hard for anyone to deal with, so you're trying to protect yourself by grabbing onto any scrap of circumstantial evidence that might suggest there's any humanity there. It's like being a Star Wars fan in the 1990s, and all of a sudden you find yourself having to defend The Phantom Menace. It's just not worth your effort. Admitting mistakes and letting go is how we grow as people.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [56 favorites]

He would never have insulted a Gold Star widow, that's just Not Fucking Done, but that's how everyone is reading it.

Name one thing he did yesterday to assuage Johnson's widow's pain vs. try to defend Trump. Instead he made a continuing freak show of her husband's death. Even if you think Wilson is wrong - and she's not and the family confirms - there is still no reason for the president to turn this into more pain for her. If Kelly would really never do anything to hurt a Gold Star mom he never would've gone out there yesterday. He would've told the president the valor in being quiet and letting a wife mourn. Fuck him. He did exactly what he accuses Wilson of doing - politicizing the death of a soldier.
posted by chris24 at 9:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [63 favorites]

I'm sensing a lot of negativity about General Kelly here; is there a Chrome plugin that will hide comments from people who don't know a Gold Star family?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

From WaPo's take on Paul Ryan's Al Smith appearance ("Paul Ryan’s got jokes about President Trump", by Amber Phillips)

But Ryan's Al Smith speech also comes hours after former president George W. Bush delivered an unmistakable takedown of Trumpism. And Bush's speech came days after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) used his acceptance speech for a prestigious award to slam the president's foreign policy as “half-baked spurious nationalism.” McCain's speech came a few weeks after retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called the White House an “adult day care” and accused Trump of being incompetent enough to start “World War III.” Corker's attacks came a few months after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) wrote a book that blames his party for the rise of Trump.

For whatever reason, right now a growing number Republicans feel like they can speak their mind about the president, even if they risk being at the end of a tweetstorm the next day. (Or, in Flake's case, having the president and his allies threaten to unseat him.)

Ryan's remarks were in no way intended to attack the president. He was making jokes at a charity dinner that practically requires jokes about the president be made.

But jokes are funny when there's a hint of truth to them. Reporters trying to pin down politicians on Trump's latest controversy can especially appreciate this one from Ryan: “Every morning I wake up in my office and I scroll through Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend I didn’t see later on.”

posted by ZeusHumms at 9:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Chief of Staff is a civilian role and one that, historically, has not required the person in that role to act as the stand-in press secretary. Kelly chose to stand at that podium and speak. He chose to say those words (i.e. to lie). If he's misinterpreted that's his problem - his task was to effectively convey a message and he failed at it. This is why the White House has a press secretary, why the DoD has a press office. If he's bad at talking to non-military personnel, he should delegate that task to one of the many people who are skilled at it. He's a grown man. I'm sorry he's bad at what he thinks his job is supposed to be. People who aren't white men generally get fired for that sort of thing.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [51 favorites]

Honestly because it's frustrating me that people are misreading him, and by extension, the military, so badly.

I don't think impugning him for being an irredeemable shitbag is in any way an indictment of the military. To the contrary: he's an irredeemable shitbag BECAUSE he's dishonoring so many people who have already given up so much.
posted by Mayor West at 9:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [52 favorites]

If there were the teensiest smidgen of decency in Kelly he would of course apologize to Wilson and the Johnson family. But he will not, and not just because he's without decency (which he is), but because his boss will not permit apologies to anybody, particularly not to a black woman Democrat.

Wraith, wraith, wraith.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [24 favorites]

These are the politics of tribalism: Kelly must defend Trump; Corb must defend Kelly. Maybe instead of knee-jerk defenses, we should make sure that what we are defending is worth defending on its face.
posted by rikschell at 9:05 AM on October 20, 2017 [25 favorites]

It's like being a Star Wars fan in the 1990s, and all of a sudden you find yourself having to defend The Phantom Menace

Jar Jar was much more defensible than anything John Kelly has done in this administration.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:08 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

When Jar Jar proposed granting emergency powers to Palpatine, he didn't realize the guy was also Darth Sidious.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:09 AM on October 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

It's so clear to me that he's just trying to do the best he can in a shit situation, just like every servicemember does daily, and so I hate this..

Every service member is human and like any human, some are terrible. The majority of them voted for Trump. They are not all doing the best they can. Unearned, blind deference to the military is a huge problem that shuts down legitimate criticism and provides cover for garbage people like Trump. Kelly is counting on people like you to bend over backwards to excuse and justify him and his boss. If that makes you feel like an alien, sorry, but I'm more worried about this country than service members' feelings right now.
posted by Mavri at 9:10 AM on October 20, 2017 [44 favorites]

We can thank Roy Cohn for teaching Trump the philosophy of never apologizing for anything and instead always going on the attack. The ghost of the monster who killed the Rosenbergs has passed through the body of Trump and into our beloved general Kelly. Roy defeated death to become a memetic disease much as Roger Ailes recently did.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:10 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

I don't think impugning him for being an irredeemable shitbag is in any way an indictment of the military. To the contrary: he's an irredeemable shitbag BECAUSE he's dishonoring so many people who have already given up so much.

I think this is true. I think it can also be true that Kelly is being a toadying shitbag and at the same time still trying to restrain, by whatever is his own definition, Donnie's "worst" impulses because he fears dying in a firestorm along with the rest of us. Shit makes Game of Thrones look light-hearted, yo.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:11 AM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

andruwjones26: This depressed nation needs some ice cream to cheer up

Instead of waiting for scoop o'clock, I suggest eating real ice cream, or some seasonal dessert, or going for a long walk outside. Whatever you do, do it with your phone in your pocket, purse, or somewhere else that is not your hand, and turned to silent.

Self care is important, so treat yourself well. Also, be kind to those around you, and don't let your rage/ frustration/ misery about the current state of impact others, unless it's for the better.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:13 AM on October 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

I support the military in the sense that I want servicemembers to be protected and treated well during and after their service. I believe this can best be achieved by opposing the Republican Party whenever possible.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:13 AM on October 20, 2017 [29 favorites]

My Republican senators Grassley and Ernst are co-sponsoring the Murray—Alexander Individual Market Stabilization Bill, so today I'm obligated to call them up to thank them, and to express hope that they will continue working to prevent the President and Republican leadership from sabotaging people's access to affordable healthcare.

Yeah, me too. But I also saw this in my FB feed this morning: Ernst Will Work to Add Hyde Amendment Language to Alexander-Murray Bill
posted by ArgentCorvid at 9:13 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Unearned, blind deference to the military is a huge problem that shuts down legitimate criticism and provides cover for garbage people like Trump. Kelly is counting on people like you to bend over backwards to excuse and justify him and his boss.

Also, to civilians, the rank worshipping and hero mythology seems a little cultish and stockholm syndrome-y.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:13 AM on October 20, 2017 [46 favorites]

It's so clear to me that he's just trying to do the best he can in a shit situation, just like every servicemember does daily, and so I hate this..

Hey, refresh my memory. Can a servicemember, faced with being in a shitty situation they consider unethical and antithetical to their every belief in how to behave morally, simply declare "I quit," and walk off and go home and binge Netflix?

Because Kelly can, in his current job, and my recall is that they kinda look poorly on it if you just fuck off mid-enlistment.

So maybe we can just can it with comparing Kelly's situation to an enlisted individual dealing with a shit situation. Because that is a huge fucking insult to all the people in our military who don't have the choice in how to deal with finding themselves taking orders from a giant orange manbaby.
posted by phearlez at 9:15 AM on October 20, 2017 [55 favorites]

ZeusHumms: But jokes are funny when there's a hint of truth to them. Reporters trying to pin down politicians on Trump's latest controversy can especially appreciate this one from Ryan: “Every morning I wake up in my office and I scroll through Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend I didn’t see later on.”

Ha ha ha NO.

How about instead of pretending that the President of the United States is a goofy idiot, treat him like the threat to democracy at home and abroad he is and IMPEACH THE ASSHOLE. Or invoke Article 25. WHATEVER. Just Get. Him. Out.

Oh right, he's your idiot clown, and YOU VOTED WITH HIM 100% OF THE TIME.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:16 AM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

Ernst Will Work to Add Hyde Amendment Language to Alexander-Murray Bill

I'm curious whether this will actually change the law or is merely symbolic, since the Hyde Amendment is already currently enacted.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:17 AM on October 20, 2017

"Kelly Chief of Staff Pot regarding Congressperson Kettle: It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. "

"And how dare she force me into revealing my own eavesdropping." [fake]
posted by klarck at 9:18 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's so clear to me that he's just trying to do the best he can in a shit situation, just like every servicemember does daily, and so I hate this..


corb, I know that it's convenient for you to forget that you are not the only veteran on this forum.

I am here to remind you that you are not the sole voice of military service here, your perspectives are not the widely shared and inevitable result that you portray them as, and that it's super fucking common for flags to fuck over subordinates in order to maintain their own positions.

And I know that you know this, because you're the one that told me.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:18 AM on October 20, 2017 [102 favorites]

Politico: Trump nominees show up for work without waiting for Senate approval

"Some lawyers and experts warn the administration may be bumping up against a 1998 law designed to prevent the president from doing an end-run around Congress." Ya think?

Anyway, here are the scoff-laws:

• Susan Bodine, Trump's nominee to head EPA’s enforcement office
• Michael Dourson, Trump's nominee to head EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention
• Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee for deputy OMB director
• Mary Waters, Trump’s assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs

This is plainly the Trump administration thumbing its nose at the the Federal Vacancies Reform Act—these people are sneaking in to the office to do substantive work while pretending they're not violating the law because they're not performing ministerial duties. They're all in key departments where the Trumpists are moving fast to enact their agenda. This isn't carelessness, it's sabotage of the legislative branch's constitutional oversight of the executive.

(Fax your senators or call the senate switchboard [phone] to talk to them, resist, and so on and so on.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:19 AM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

And as a bonus for Ryan, he now seems more human and hey, reporters can totally relate to him!

Amber Phillips and others, you're normalizing the chaos and terror of Trump by making him a punchline everyone can enjoy, Dems and GOP alike.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:19 AM on October 20, 2017

I'm glad Speaker Ryan has the self-confidence to publicly joke about the offensive incompetence of a man he is personally responsible for allowing to seize the presidency of the United States, even after privately pledging to never defend him again.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:20 AM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Also, to civilians, the rank worshipping and hero mythology seems a little cultish and stockholm syndrome-y.

I've known enough servicemembers to know that it's not just civilians who have problems with that. A whole lot of them find it a bad look, too.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:21 AM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Also, to civilians, the rank worshipping and hero mythology seems a little cultish and stockholm syndrome-y.

Most of my family and my ex husband were military and it seems super cultish to me. Maybe I just had an unusual bunch of former and current military family and friends but the only people who thought of it as some kind of Magic Paladin Biz I've ever known were the same kind of people who tell you they were Navy Special Rangers until they took an arrow to the knee.
posted by winna at 9:21 AM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

What a slimy, mendacious jerk. I'm Australian and live in Australia and never studied in the US and even I know that the phrase which appears in the First Amendment to the US Constitution is "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion". And I typed that out from memory before checking it because that's how well-known a phrase it is, that I remember it from merely casual reading.

It also isn't as if these so-called "constitutional originalists" aren't aware that the Founders wrote extensively about wanting to separate church and state, even if they didn't use that precise phrase in the Constitution.

And if they had, this jerk would be asking them to Google the phrase "establishment of religion" instead. "See? Nowhere in the Constitution is the phrase "establishment of religion."

Here's your daily friendly reminder that one doesn't have to be slimily mendacious unless the facts really don't support your position. Feh.
posted by Gelatin at 9:23 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Masha Gessen at the New Yorker givin' it to us straight, as usual: John Kelly and the Language of the Military Coup

Consider this nightmare scenario: a military coup. You don’t have to strain your imagination—all you have to do is watch Thursday’s White House press briefing, in which the chief of staff, John Kelly, defended President Trump’s phone call to a military widow, Myeshia Johnson. The press briefing could serve as a preview of what a military coup in this country would look like, for it was in the logic of such a coup that Kelly advanced his four arguments. [...]

Argument 1. Those who criticize the President don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t served in the military. [...]
2. The President did the right thing because he did exactly what his general told him to do. [...]
3. Communication between the President and a military widow is no one’s business but theirs. [...]
4. Citizens are ranked based on their proximity to dying for their country.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:24 AM on October 20, 2017 [79 favorites]

I don't think impugning him for being an irredeemable shitbag is in any way an indictment of the military. To the contrary: he's an irredeemable shitbag BECAUSE he's dishonoring so many people who have already given up so much.

You're correct, but I also don't think it would be wrong to impugn the military, which has basically done nothing but sow chaos in the Middle East for as long as I've been alive. Ordinary enlisted veterans should get good care from a government which has forced several generations of them into a long series of unwinnable wars, but the officer corps and its collection of equally and ineffectively lethal counter-insurgency strategies can go to hell.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:25 AM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

Kelly said: "That was the message. That was the message that was transmitted."

Except it wasn't the message that was "transmitted," most likely because Donald Trump is an incoherent, egotistical asshole. It may have been what Trump intended, but that's not how it came across.

This reminds me of a joke told about people in my line of work, and it even involves the military. Here's how I recall it.

A network engineer, after a decade of working for various telcos and internet service providers, decides he wants a change in his life and enlists in the army. He does well enough through basic training until he gets to the rifle range where it turns out he's not a very good shot. He misses the target every single time.

He gets ordered to reload and try again, and is given some suggestions on how to hold his weapon and better sight down the barrel, and again fires at the target. The spotter looks and yet again not a single hit on the target.

The network engineer, flustered, looks at his weapon and - before anyone can stop him - puts a finger over the end of the end of the barrel and pulls the trigger. Exactly as would be expected, the end of his digit is blown clear off.

Everyone else on the range is aghast, but the network engineer merely grips what's left of his finger to cut off the blood flow and yells "there's nothing wrong with the equipment down here, the problem must be on your end."

It's way less funny when the result of "the message that was transmitted" means being shitty to someone whose loved one paid the ultimate price. But it's still fucking bullshit to claim the sender had nothing to do with how it was received and it's inane to claim they have no responsibility.
posted by phearlez at 9:25 AM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

now both your party and your leadership are showing how horrifyingly anti-human they are

I would argue that saying Republicans are only now showing their horrifying anti-humanness is completely revisionist history. I have no idea how anyone could with any self-respect call themselves a Republican and not expect that anti-human label to automatically attach to them within at least the last decade.
posted by Cheerwell Maker at 9:27 AM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

Guys, Kelly didn't actually say much of anything about the widow herself. I'll pop in another link to his remarks for convenience. He doesn't say a damn thing about that widow directly.

He impugns the congresswoman Frederica Wilson, and he ignores the fact that Rep Wilson is a close friend of the family who is also grieving. That's bad enough as it is. He ignores the fact that she was invited by the widow and mother to be in the car with them during the call - that's bad enough too. But ignoring something the widow said, and pretending she hadn't said it, is not the same as calling her a liar.

The closest he gets to impugning Gold Star families is this, in the list of things that used to be sacred: "Gold Star families, I think [their sacredness] left in the convention over the summer." That's really non-specific. It sure sounds like he thinks the Khans ruined the sanctity of their grief - but that's only because he's willingly working for Trump. And in any case that's an insult to the Khans, not the widow Johnson.

He creates this .... rhetorical wall between the military and their families and friends, and everyone else, and that's fashy and dangerous and unsettling. He ignores the fact that Rep Wilson is on the "good" side of that wall, and there's no way to interpret that's not both racist and political. He didn't say a damn word about the widow Johnson.

The things he actually said are worth taking offense to, as is. There's no need to twist it around. It makes it sound like you haven't actually listened to him - like you're reacting to the General Kelly in your head, not in reality. If you think I'm wrong, pull his direct words, in quotation marks, please.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:28 AM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

Corb, the video and news story about the Congresswoman Wilson's speech are here. Kelly either lied or let his desire to support Trump colour his memory.

Yes, please go watch that video, which is incredibly gracious and generous and kind, and then re-read Kelly's description of how he remembers it. I will grant you that he may just be grossly misremembering what happened, by accident rather than purposeful malice, but the SPECIFIC WAY he's misremembering it is implicitly malicious.

Why is he predisposed to think this Congressperson is a self-aggrandizing showboat when she went out of her way to show it was a bipartisan team effort? Why is he predisposed to think she would take credit for something she didn't do when she thanked all the people involved? Why would he think she talked about money and how she got money out of President Obama by using some Special Secret Black People Are In Cahoots Reverse Racism Handshake®? Why did he forget the really lovely thing she DID do -- help to make sure that the building was named after the dead agents and the appreciative detailed personal things she said about them, the FBI, and law enforcement?

And then listen to what she said about the risks and dangers and courage and commitment of military and law enforcement officers and compare that to the shit Trump has shoveled this week and Kelly's disgusting comments about Rep. Wilson. Kelly should be fucking ashamed of what he said and thought about her and should apologize abjectly.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:30 AM on October 20, 2017 [80 favorites]

I have no idea how anyone could with any self-respect call themselves a Republican and not expect that anti-human label to automatically attach to them within at least the last decade.

The Southern Strategy was evolved and deployed before most of us were either born or even in elementary school.

It goes way back further than a decade.
posted by winna at 9:34 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

FelliniBlank
"Women are sacred," blech. I'm going to make a point of being EXTRA SPECIALLY profane for the next several days just to wash the sickly sweet taste of that shit out of my brain, so fuck you, Kelly, you fucking fuck.

I'm happy to report that I was your 69th favorite!

USE THIS HUMBLE OFFERING WITH YOUR PROFOUND IMAGINATION IN WAYS A MERE MORTAL SUCH AS I WOULD NEVER BEGIN TO CONSIDER.

ALL HAIL FELLINIBLANK'S PROFANITY!
posted by narwhal at 9:34 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Full video of Frederica Wilson's 2015 FBI speech shows John Kelly got it wrong

I watched it in case you can't. It's a short speech where Congresswoman Wilson acknowledges the honorable guests in attendance, then she recaps the bipartisan process that lead to the bill's passage, thanking Speaker Boehner and Senators Rubio and Nelson by name. She has other Florida representatives in attendance stand for recognition. She credits the quick work that congress did as indication to the respect that they have to the FBI. She calls on all member of law enforcement in attendance to stand to be applauded for the work that they do because "we are proud of your courage". She quickly recaps the events on the day of the shootout that took the lives of Grogan and Dove and finishes with this:

So today it is our patriotic duty to lift up Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove from the streets in South Florida and place their names and pictures high where the world will know that we are proud of their sacrifice, sacrifice for our nation. It is only fitting that their names should be placed on the same mantle and the letters F - B - I because Special Agents Benjamin Grogan and Dove embody the sacred motto for which the agency has become known, please repeat it after me: Fidelty, Bravery, and Integrity. God bless you, god bless the FBI and God bless America.

Then audience applauded, they were not, as Kelly says, "stunned". She never mentioned funding. She never mentioned Obama by name, she only says "and then president signed the bill into law". She never took credit for anything other than saying "oh hell no" to the idea that this was a bill that couldn't be passed.
posted by peeedro at 9:35 AM on October 20, 2017 [84 favorites]

So I'm willing to take a question or two on this topic. Let me ask you this: Is anyone here a Gold Star parent or sibling? Does anyone here know a Gold Star parent or sibling?

I know a Gold Star sibling...so does that mean I'm allowed to tell Kelly to get fucked?
posted by elsietheeel at 9:37 AM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]

As it happens, you're allowed to tell Kelly to get fucked even if you have no connection to the military of any kind whatsoever!
posted by kyrademon at 9:39 AM on October 20, 2017 [58 favorites]

If you think I'm wrong, pull his direct words, in quotation marks, please.

It's disingenuous to pretend that insult can only happen through direct quotation. He ignored the widow entirely, smeared the family friend, didn't apologize for the way Trump handled it, and dragged out this painful spectacle. If you don't think that's insulting a Gold Star family, that's your right, but don't accuse the rest of us of twisting things because we see the insult anyway.
posted by Mavri at 9:41 AM on October 20, 2017 [59 favorites]

But ignoring something the widow said, and pretending she hadn't said it, is not the same as calling her a liar.

He didn't ignore what the widow said. Or what the soldier's mom said. Or what Congresswoman Wilson said.

He's presenting a narrative that directly contradicts statements from the widow and the soldier's mother, who were both on the call.

And he did it with the full authority of the White House on display behind him on national television.

The implication that they are all lying about what happened is crystal clear.
posted by zarq at 9:41 AM on October 20, 2017 [57 favorites]

1) say something absurd, divisive, and infuriating that dominates the news coverage
2) pass a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich financed by deficit spending
posted by miyabo at 9:41 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

The closest he gets to impugning Gold Star families is this, in the list of things that used to be sacred: "Gold Star families, I think [their sacredness] left in the convention over the summer." That's really non-specific. It sure sounds like he thinks the Khans ruined the sanctity of their grief - but that's only because he's willingly working for Trump. And in any case that's an insult to the Khans, not the widow Johnson.

Yea...they're a gold star family too. This really doesn't make it any better, at all.

Neither does claiming a monopoly on how these families are allowed to grieve. Kelly is not allowed dictate to the Khans, or Cindy Sheehan, or anyone else, how they are allowed to or forbidden from taking action on their family member's death. Their response speaking out is as valid as his to say nothing. At least until he was told by Trump to dig up his son's memory and throw it on the altar of wraiths.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:42 AM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

From the Masha Gessen piece in the New Yorker that Rust Moranis linked above:

It is in totalitarian societies, which demand complete mobilization, that dying for one’s country becomes the ultimate badge of honor. Growing up in the Soviet Union, I learned the names of ordinary soldiers who threw their bodies onto enemy tanks, becoming literal cannon fodder. All of us children had to aspire to the feat of martyrdom. No Soviet general would have dared utter the kind of statement that’s attributed to General George S. Patton: “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

posted by joyceanmachine at 9:43 AM on October 20, 2017 [29 favorites]

From Kelly's remarks:

And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, with exactly the people he wanted to be with when his life was taken.

This appears to be an inaccurate accounting of the events. It seems as though Johnson was alive when he was left behind for two days by the private contractor tasked with the rescue.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [40 favorites]

Are there other citations for that claim about the private contractors?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:51 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Who is working on combating voter suppression?

Also, Postcards to Voters volunteers are hand writing tens of thousands of get out the vote postcards for the Tuesday November 7, 2017 elections. Current Postcards candidates are Kimberley Anne Tucker in the state race for Virginia House of Delegates District 81 and Kathie Allen in the federal special election for Utah House of Representatives District 3. Write with us!

Utah has a special election because Representative Jason "Order of the Bronze Knee Scooter" Chaffetz, who came back from surgery for his preexisting condition to vote against healthcare for people with preexisting conditions, resigned soon after that vote.
posted by jointhedance at 9:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

It seems as though Johnson was alive when he was left behind for two days by the private contractor tasked with the rescue.

Someone help me out with this: do we have to ritually genuflect to MILITARY MERCENARIES the same way we have to abase ourselves before people who joined the regular military? Or is it ok to criticize them?
posted by winna at 9:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [50 favorites]

We’re watching the Dignity Wraith Effect occur in real-time in this thread. It’s really sad.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

> Are there other citations for that claim about the private contractors?

Buried in the Twitter thread a bit:

U.S. officials haven’t been clear on precisely how helicopters evacuated the Americans who were killed or wounded. Some officials and lawmakers also questioned how Army Sgt. La David Johnson appeared to have been left behind for nearly two days before Nigerien forces found his remains.

posted by tonycpsu at 9:54 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Are there other citations for that claim about the private contractors?

What we know and don't know about the deadly Niger attack [CNN; autoplay]

A US private aviation contractor conducted evacuations of US and Nigerien troops after they were ambushed, according to US Africa Command spokesperson Robyn Mack. Mack said that US private contractor Berry Aviation was "on alert during the incident and conducted casualty evacuation and transport for US and partner forces." US officials previously told CNN that French military Super Puma helicopters also evacuated the wounded Americans along with those killed in action while also providing covering fire. The wounded were first flown to the capital Niamey and later to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

posted by melissasaurus at 9:55 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Kelly should be fucking ashamed of what he said and thought about her and should apologize abjectly.

The first rule of wraith club is never apologise about wraith club. Apology is Betrayal: that Trump must never be betrayed or slighted is the whole of the law.

I wouldn't hold my breath.
posted by Buntix at 9:56 AM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

So maybe the first time wasn't an unfortunate accident.

@ScaramucciPost
Before we move on we will spend the next half hour digging on one question: How many Jews were alive worldwide in 1939?
posted by chris24 at 9:57 AM on October 20, 2017 [22 favorites]

A lot of congresspeople claim to sleep on a cot in their office to save money and also show how they're not getting too cozy down there in D.C. because their hearts are back in The Heartland™. I never believed that shit for one second.

Ha, so this is a random place for me to have actual relevant knowledge, but: I personally know someone who literally used to date Paul Ryan's roommate in DC. (To anticipate the next question: she said yeah, he's pretty much always been like that.) I'm pretty confident they didn't all 3 of them sleep in Paul Ryan's office, so he at least used to have an apartment in DC. Seems odd that he would give it up when he got a promotion, but technically I can't be sure.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 9:58 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

All this ideology, mostly right-wing, of "support our troops!" and "dying for your country is the most noble thing, and we must all bow down" - is taking place against a background where fewer, not more, Americans are veterans. If you look at the graph in the article you can see that, in the 1960's and 1970's, a full 45 percent - almost half! - of American men had served in the military. In 2014, that was down to 16 percent of men and 8 percent of women (down from 18 percent of women in 1980, the first year female veterans were counted).

Forty years ago, everyone was bound to know a veteran or two - in their family, at their church, in their workplace. Now, I would wager there are wide swaths of people who don't have veterans in their intimate circles at all. I am in this group. (I do have a relative married to a veteran but we're not close and I've never met him.)

I would wager there are many war hawk types, and "support our troops!" types, and people who go up to random soldiers in stores or restaurants to say "Thank you for your service!" who don't really see the troops as people, flesh and blood flawed humans who have chosen the military for different reasons. Do they see military service people? Or do they see "the troops!" as an abstraction propping up their right-wing nut-job ways?
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:58 AM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

what the FUCK scaramucci
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:59 AM on October 20, 2017 [30 favorites]

According to the WSJ article:

The U.S. troops in question depended on the French military for air support and used aircraft flown by contractors to evacuate the injured...

posted by zakur at 10:00 AM on October 20, 2017

> @ScaramucciPost: Before we move on we will spend the next half hour digging on one question: How many Jews were alive worldwide in 1939?

The fuck is it with this guy and Jews? Seriously?

And the fuck is it with digging and digging and digging?
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

Do they see military service people? Or do they see "the troops!" as an abstraction propping up their right-wing nut-job ways?

Given the treatment that vets get on the street, I'm going to go with 'abstraction'.
posted by mikelieman at 10:02 AM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

There's a part of me that understands why somebody like Kelly would find "he knew what he was getting into" to be comforting. If the worst part of your grief is the randomness of what happened, it's comforting to be reminded that the person you love chose this and knew the risks. The death has a meaning, right?

However, if your grief is focused on the big, ugly hole left behind, it's salt on the wound. He chose to leave his pregnant wife without a husband? He chose to leave his kids without a dad, his mother without a son? What kind of person voluntarily does that? Throw in the rumors that Sgt. Johnson was left behind by a military contractor tasked with getting him out, which I'm guessing the family has heard about given what we've heard about the open casket/closed casket stuff, and I'd be moved to pure rage by any idea that he knew and accepted the risks.

... also, for the record, I've just put more thought into what Donald Trump said to a grieving wife and mother than the fucking President of the United States did when he was on the fucking phone with them but he apparently couldn't even fucking say the guy's na

FUCKINSG:DKFJWEWJe.
posted by joyceanmachine at 10:03 AM on October 20, 2017 [28 favorites]

So today it is our patriotic duty to lift up Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove from the streets in South Florida and place their names and pictures high where the world will know that we are proud of their sacrifice, sacrifice for our nation. It is only fitting that their names should be placed on the same mantle and the letters F - B - I because Special Agents Benjamin Grogan and Dove embody the sacred motto for which the agency has become known, please repeat it after me: Fidelty, Bravery, and Integrity. God bless you, god bless the FBI and God bless America.

I love so much that the Wilson speech Kelly flagrantly lied about is actually the speech Donald Trump should have given about the Niger casualties two weeks ago.

The 2017 writers: just fucking with us for shits and giggles, as usual.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:04 AM on October 20, 2017 [29 favorites]

they didn't all 3 of them sleep in Paul Ryan's office, so he at least used to have an apartment in DC

Success_kid.gif
posted by elsietheeel at 10:05 AM on October 20, 2017

Honestly because it's frustrating me that people are misreading him, and by extension, the military, so badly.

I do not believe he was misread in any way. Kelly's was a carefully written statement with measured levels of outrage expressed against the politicization of a subject that his boss has been aggressively politicizing.

But if he was misinterpreted, that's entirely on him. It's his responsibility to speak with clarity when addressing the American people. If he meant to reassure or comfort Sgt. Johnson's widow, he could have done so. If he had meant to clarify the President's comments, he could have done so. Instead, he dismissed Congresswoman Wilson's account of what had happened. An account which both the widow and soldier's mom have said is accurate. Which says the President referred to Sgt. Johnson as "your guy" and didn't say his name. Which says the President compassionately told a grieving widow that her husband knew what he was getting into.

This has nothing to do with misreading the military.

It's so clear to me that he's just trying to do the best he can in a shit situation, just like every servicemember does daily, and so I hate this..

As someone else pointed out above, Kelly is no longer simply a soldier, but a General. This remains true even in his retirement, in his new position of power within the White House. To quote Heinlein, "It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how--or why--he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how."

Kelly chose to speak. He chose what he would and would not say.

He had a choice.
posted by zarq at 10:08 AM on October 20, 2017 [42 favorites]

> This appears to be an inaccurate accounting of the events. It seems as though Johnson was alive when he was left behind for two days by the private contractor tasked with the rescue.

Can we PLEASE not take Laura Sessions' viral twitter thread as fact. It's something she copied from Facebook with an unknown author and in her tweet replies she is admitting that a lot of it is unsourced-- it's a theory that she is stating as fact. In particular she has already walked back the "he was definitely alive when they left" and "he was definitely mutilated" claims.
posted by acidic at 10:09 AM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

I love so much that the Wilson speech Kelly flagrantly lied about is actually the speech Donald Trump should have given about the Niger casualties two weeks ago.

Yeah, that's why I typed that out that last bit (and sorry for the typos in there). It's pretty galling that Kelly would shit on Wilson for her speech praising the sacrifice of patriots.
posted by peeedro at 10:10 AM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Charity’s promised back pay to Roy Moore was not reported to IRS as income (Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg, WaPo)

The Alabama charity once led by Senate candidate Roy Moore did not report to the Internal Revenue Service that in 2011 it guaranteed him $498,000 in back pay, according to an income report provided to The Washington Post by the charity itself.

Five tax law and accounting specialists said it appears the guaranteed payment should have been reported as compensation, a disclosure that would have triggered a federal tax bill of more than $100,000.

Moore and his campaign have not responded to questions about whether he paid the taxes, or to requests that he release his income tax returns.

posted by Room 641-A at 10:12 AM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

CBS: Niger ambush: FBI now assisting in investigation [autoplay]

The circumstances of Sgt. La David Johnson's death has raised questions, too. After the ambush ended, Johnson was believed by the Pentagon to be alive. For several hours, the military tracked a locator beacon which eventually faded out. His body was not recovered for another two days.

posted by melissasaurus at 10:13 AM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

For those writing postcards to VA voters, I've decided to include in mine the contact number for VoteRiders, which according to their site is 844-338-8743. Virginia does require voter IDs, but apparently you can get a temporary one just for the election.
posted by lauranesson at 10:14 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

@ScaramucciPost
Before we move on we will spend the next half hour digging on one question: How many Jews were alive worldwide in 1939?

The person tweeting is supposedly Lance Laifer, who is Jewish. If so, this would appear to be his way of trying to educate Twitter about the Holocaust.

I'll take "Oy Gevalt" for $1000, Alex.
posted by zarq at 10:17 AM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, with exactly the people he wanted to be with when his life was taken.

anybody want to keep saying it's not an insult to his widow to claim that this man, given the choice, would have preferred the company of other soldiers in his last hours to that of his own children and pregnant wife? It's a greater insult to the dead man for sure. but he is beyond insult now, and his family is not.

Mind-reading the dead to spit on the living is sick shit and Kelly is a sick fuck, and that would be true if Trump had never been born. Trump gave him the occasion to say this, but the ability to say it was inside him all along.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:21 AM on October 20, 2017 [34 favorites]

eyyyy, I'm doin' perfectly legitimate historical inquiry over here. it's like my good Nonno Louie's perfectly legitimate business, except it's perfectly legitimate
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:21 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

For those writing postcards to VA voters, I've decided to include in mine the contact number for VoteRiders, which according to their site is 844-338-8743.

Mine are written out but maybe I can find room on the front, it’s a great idea.

Also, Pro Tip: Don’t buy a roll of 100 stamps and then accidentally throw it away an hour later. Off to buy more stamps.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:22 AM on October 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

anybody want to keep saying it's not an insult to his widow to claim that this man, given the choice would have preferred the company of other soldiers in his last hours to that of his own children and pregnant wife?

He probably meant it too. I don't think conservative men actually like women much. They like that we can give them sex and children and clean homes and hot meals and someone to boss around. But women as equal and free-thinking people that you would actually choose to spend time with (absent the above) are mostly a pain in the ass.
posted by Mavri at 10:26 AM on October 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

There's a part of me that understands why somebody like Kelly would find "he knew what he was getting into" to be comforting. If the worst part of your grief is the randomness of what happened, it's comforting to be reminded that the person you love chose this and knew the risks. The death has a meaning, right?

I think it's supposed to primarily be a testament to their bravery, with a little accidental this is a necessary price some pay by way of stipulating that this as something that must happen to some. There's certainly an undercurrent that relies upon an acceptance that any military action is necessary and just, which I'd personally question as true in most cases over the last fifty years. But it's not audience-inappropriate when you're talking folks who joined the military and their families.

But, as has been hashed here over and over, this is a rhetorical tool you have to use carefully or else it's mean and insensitive. I can only hope that in his own thoughts Kelly is kicking himself with guilt over handing this tool to someone he knows is incapable of verbal finesse.
posted by phearlez at 10:41 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Three charged in shooting after Spencer talk

Three supporters of white nationalist Richard Spencer were arrested Thursday in connection with an incident in which a shot was fired, according to Gainesville Police Department arrest reports.

William Henry Fears, 30, of Pasadena, Texas; Colton Gene Fears, 28, also of Pasadena; and Tyler Eugene Tenbrink, 28, of Richmond, Texas; were charged with attempted homicide and held in the Alachua County jail. Tenbrink was also charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon. [...]

Fears was arrested in 2009 on an aggravated kidnapping charge after abducting a female acquaintance in Texas, media reports show.

NB: "in connection with an incident in which a shot was fired" = they shouted "Adolf Hitler" and "sieg heil" at a group of people with anti-Spencer signs at a bus stop then got out of their car with a handgun, said "shoot them" and "I'm going to fucking kill you" and then shot at them.
posted by melissasaurus at 10:45 AM on October 20, 2017 [87 favorites]

Details on the 2009 kidnapping:

At about 6 a.m. Sunday morning, William Fears, 22, entered the University Pines Apartments, 3333 Varsity Dr., and forced an 18-year-old woman to his car at knifepoint. The 18-year-old victim is Fears’ ex-girlfriend, police said. [...] Fears drove the victim to a location east of Tyler where he allegedly stabbed her in the face, arms and legs. The victim escaped from Fears and fled back to campus and reported the incident to The University police.

posted by melissasaurus at 10:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Propublica on the Rise Above Movement:

ProPublica spent weeks examining one distinctive group at the center of the violence in Charlottesville: an organization called the Rise Above Movement, one of whose members was the white man dispensing beatings near Emancipation Park Aug. 12.

The group, based in Southern California, claims more than 50 members and a singular purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes. RAM’s members spend weekends training in boxing and other martial arts, and they have boasted publicly of their violence during protests in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley. Many of the altercations have been captured on video, and its members are not hard to spot...

...Despite their prior records, and open boasting of current violence, RAM has seemingly drawn little notice from law enforcement. Four episodes of violence documented by ProPublica resulted in only a single arrest — and in that case prosecutors declined to go forward. Law enforcement officials in the four cities — Charlottesville, Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley — either would not comment about RAM or said they had too little evidence or too few resources to seriously investigate the group’s members.

posted by nubs at 10:55 AM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Rise Above? More like Double Down and be a Dick.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:01 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

“Rise Above”? A golden chance for Greg Ginn’s litigiousness to be used for good, here.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:10 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

"The troops" are definitely an abstraction to most of these people, which is why they don't hesitate to attack any member of the military (or their families) who doesn't conform to their idea of what they should say or do or how they should act.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:11 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!

@realDonaldTrump: The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!

Trump's tweets have become indistinguishable from click-bait headlines...
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:17 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Paul Waldman, The Republican tax scam is about to kick into overdrive. In which we've already seen with health care what happens when "we must pass something, anything" becomes the only priority, and this is going to be far worse.

Of course, they’ll say that doesn’t matter, because once we give corporations a tax cut, the economy is going to explode in such an awe-inspiring supernova of growth that the only question the average American will have is whether to buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Their shamelessness in making this claim when it’s been disproven by history over and over again is truly something to behold. But it’s what will allow people like Bob Corker to say they won’t vote for a bill that raises the deficit, and then end up voting for a bill that does just that.

At the end of all this, Republicans are going to have a Rose Garden ceremony vibrating with such celebratory joy that you’d think they just cured cancer, ended global warming, and terraformed Mars. The actual bill will be nothing like what they describe — it won’t be aimed at the middle class, it won’t simplify the tax code, and it won’t be real “reform.” Nor will it produce the spectacular trickle-down effects they promise. In other words, it’ll be pretty much like every other Republican tax cut.

Charity’s promised back pay to Roy Moore was not reported to IRS as income (Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg, WaPo)

Speaking of tax scams... It's astonishing to me how many people seem to have perfectly lucrative tax schemes going on (by which I mean straight up not paying, not legally arranging your affairs to reduce your bill) only to be exposed when they run for office. Like, you've got a sweet thing going; why'd you have to ruin it by doing the one thing that makes determined journalists dig into your background? Is it any wonder that Congress keeps the IRS perpetually underfunded?
posted by zachlipton at 11:24 AM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

*pant pant cough cough*

Oh hey yall, I've just un-Tehhunded myself from two weeks on vacation in Italy & Turkey with limited Thread access. Witnessed from across the ages the downfall of a few once-glorious, world-spanning empires and a corrupt religious establishment or two, plus (in one spectacular case) the remnants of the surprise fiery destruction of a city

What's, uh, been going on Stateside since I left?
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:28 AM on October 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

Q: Can [General Kelly] come out here and talk to us about this? ...

Sarah Sanders: I think he's addressed that pretty thoroughly yesterday.

Q: But he was wrong yesterday, talking about getting the money; the money was...

Sarah Sanders: If you want to go after General Kelly that's up to you, but I think that if you want to get in a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that's something highly inappropriate.

There you have it: questioning your designated military leaders is un-American.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:29 AM on October 20, 2017 [108 favorites]

questioning your designated military leaders is un-American.

Oh. I see.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:30 AM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

Here's the press conference, don't think I can link to the specific time yet
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:31 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Here's video of that, should you like the multimedia experience of hearing how our (former!) military leaders cannot be questioned.
posted by zachlipton at 11:32 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

The entire conference is extra shameful today. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a very bad person.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:32 AM on October 20, 2017 [30 favorites]

Trump's tweets have become indistinguishable from click-bait headlines...

Anti-Authoritarians Hate Him!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:33 AM on October 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

I have no idea how anyone could with any self-respect call themselves a Republican and not expect that anti-human label to automatically attach to them within at least the last decade.

That one's easy: They know deep down that the so-called "liberal media" that they complain about will bend over backwards to portray them not as amoral, bigoted monsters but rather as hapless saps motivated by economic anxiety or some such hogwash.
posted by Gelatin at 11:33 AM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Kelly either lied or let his desire to support Trump colour his memory.

It's possible that Kelly was remembering incorrectly. I'll withhold judgement on that point for now. But if that's the case, then I would expect him to offer an apology to Wilson. If he does not apologize, then I'm going to assume that he was deliberately lying. And letting his comments stand as said in the face of video proof that he was wrong is yet another lie.
posted by homunculus at 11:40 AM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Sarah Sanders: If you want to go after General Kelly that's up to you, but I think that if you want to get in a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that's something highly inappropriate.

God I want someone in the press corps to dispense a khitbash on her so hard.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:42 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Please enjoy in this edtion of "previously on Twitter" Trump attacking a four-star general.
posted by zachlipton at 11:44 AM on October 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

: If you want to go after General Kelly that's up to you, but I think that if you want to get in a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that's something highly inappropriate.

Yo fascism how you doin'?

I'm wondering, how many stars before the General becomes beyond all question and reproach. Is it the first star or do you have to have all 4? Also, is it different for an Army general? Furthermore, are Admirals on the same level here or...?

Please someone put a stop to this. Plz.
_{There's only one admiral I think it would be highly innapropriate to go after: my hero, Admiral Grace Hopper.}
posted by dis_integration at 11:46 AM on October 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

The Rude Pundit: Oh, Just Fuck Off, John Kelly
posted by homunculus at 11:47 AM on October 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

The President Trump Movie is going to be full of brief ironic flashbacks, possibly directed by Seth MacFarlane
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:48 AM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's possible that Kelly was remembering incorrectly. I'll withhold judgement on that point for now. But if that's the case, then I would expect him to offer an apology to Wilson. If he does not apologize, then I'm going to assume that he was deliberately lying. And letting his comments stand as said in the face of video proof that he was wrong is yet another lie.

Today Huckabee-Sanders says that the statements Kelly attributed to Wilson yesterday were made off camera -- and overheard by several people .

Which sorta undercuts the whole empty barrel bit about grandstanding politicians, but we're not stopping to mop up ; our doctrine is to race ahead and envelop.
posted by notyou at 11:49 AM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

I think that if you want to get in a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that's something highly inappropriate.

Hm. I thought part of the founding of the very nation in which Ms. Sanders resides was based on the principle that no authority should be above question or of being held to account.
posted by nubs at 11:51 AM on October 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

I'm sure the President has proof of Kelly's claims and will be presenting it very soon, maybe in the next few weeks; you'll see.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

I was wondering this, it appears that nobody has really compiled the data (in part because nobody has the data, given the White House's chaotic nature): does race play a role in which Gold Star families are contacted by the President?
posted by suelac at 11:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Today Huckabee-Sanders says that the statements Kelly attributed to Wilson yesterday were made off camera -- and overheard by several people .

I dream of the day when a member of the press stands up and says, "sorry, but you people are known liars who have no credibility. Pictures video or it didn't happen."
posted by Gelatin at 11:52 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

I thought part of the founding of the very nation in which Ms. Sanders resides was based on the principle that no authority should be above question or of being held to account.

But that would imply the President couldn't fire the FBI director on the explicit basis of attempting to undermine an investigation into his campaign
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

I think that if you want to get in a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that's something highly inappropriate.

I think acting like veterans are sacred and unquestionable is highly inappropriate regardless of their rank.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:54 AM on October 20, 2017 [59 favorites]

Rude Pundit: In doing so, Kelly took his career and any respectability he had, which he had already handed over to Trump when he agreed to work for him in the first place, and he allowed Trump to fuck it in the ass while he cheered Trump on.

On national television, while telling everyone that he knew exactly what he signed up for...
posted by elsietheeel at 11:54 AM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm sure the President has proof of Kelly's claims and will be presenting it very soon

It's a variant of Trump's Mirror; he got burned because more than one person was witness to the call, so it wasn't The Mighty Trump's word against just some nobody*. So, yeah...There were several people! Who overheard it! That's the ticket!

*My characterization of these amoral monsters' opinion, not my own opinion, obviously.
posted by Gelatin at 11:54 AM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Note: if the President had simply said he had been misunderstood and maybe called the family again to clarify, this story would have vanished. He did not do that because he cannot do that. Responding to criticism with animal rage untethered from fact or social convention is all he knows.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:58 AM on October 20, 2017 [41 favorites]

The Southern Strategy was evolved and deployed before most of us were either born or even in elementary school.

It goes way back further than a decade.
posted by winna at 9:34 AM on October 20 [14 favorites +] [!]

This is a painful reminder of a recent realization I've had about the Southern strategy. I used to think it was just one small piece of the jigsaw puzzle that forms the GOP base. That dog-whistling would bring another four or five percent to the polls in November, incremental to the right-to-lifers and tax-cutters. But with the blatant, overt racism and racist language displayed by much of the Trump administration, and the simultaneous clinging to him by 27% or so of the electorate, I'm sure the GOP knew long before it became obvious that frankly racist voters represented nearly a quarter of the electorate, and that the Southern strategy was bringing them a very large chunk of voters. Trump knew that if he called out explicitly to this bloc, he would have a good chance of winning, because he was told this by the GOP. And that bloc will never abandon him, because he's the first President in a loooong time that is one of their number.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:03 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

Extremely petty gossip time, from, sigh, Page Six, please judge me for posting this: The Mooch is not happy about unflattering story

Anthony Scaramucci was unusually sensitive about Page Six’s story about him losing an unpaid speaking gig after his Web site, the Scaramucci Post, published an ill-advised Holocaust poll.

In a series of threatening e-mails, the shortest-ever-lived White House communications director strongly insisted his canceled speaking gig at Neuberger Berman was a free gig he was doing for a friend.

Then the Mooch, who was fired by President Donald Trump after an expletive-filled rant to a journalist, made numerous threats to Page Six, which included, “You are a lowlife. Write whatever you want, I can take it. But you will be writing a check off of what you last wrote . . . You lied with intent. Going to be a tough one for you.”

Plus, “Not sure why you want to pick a fight with me, but you have succeeded. I know the law. Ask CNN.” And, “You are picking a fight with the wrong person. My sources are telling me that you are making nasty opinionated insinuations about me everywhere. It . . . makes you look classless.” When is this guy going to learn the phrase “off the record”?

Of all the people in the world to talk about "look[ing] classless," really? This man is, well, a Scaramouche.

I have to admit I was following Scaramucci Post on Twitter, because I'm tawdry like that. For even stupider reasons, I didn't unfollow after the Holocaust poll. I did yesterday though, after they posted a painting supposedly by Lance Laifer of an Israeli flag at a Jewish Day School, because fuck these assholes.
posted by zachlipton at 12:04 PM on October 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

Note: if the President had simply said he had been misunderstood and maybe called the family again to clarify, this story would have vanished. He did not do that because he cannot do that. Responding to criticism with animal rage untethered from fact or social convention is all he knows.

Let's also not forget -- as Kelly seems to have -- that Trump had already 1) failed to even publicly acknowledge the deaths of the four soldiers for days and then b) falsely claimed that he called people but Barack Obama didn't. Trump had already politicized the issue with his false attack on his predecessor, but Kelly pretended it never happened.
posted by Gelatin at 12:04 PM on October 20, 2017 [29 favorites]

The Southern strategy is just the latest (well, penultimate if you count Tea Party / MAGA separately) iteration of the American moneyed class's generally successful strategy to turn lower-middle-class whites against their fellow class members of other ethnicities, religions and/or races.

It's not 40 years old, it's 400 years old.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:07 PM on October 20, 2017 [24 favorites]

Facebook Trending has audio from a different Gold Star family call that Trump did not screw up. Of course, people are confused and think that this is a refutation of the claims made by Wilson and La David Johnson's mother.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:13 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Three supporters of white nationalist Richard Spencer were arrested Thursday in connection with an incident in which a shot was fired, according to Gainesville Police Department arrest reports.

William Henry Fears, 30, of Pasadena, Texas; Colton Gene Fears, 28, also of Pasadena; and Tyler Eugene Tenbrink, 28, of Richmond, Texas; were charged with attempted homicide and held in the Alachua County jail. Tenbrink was also charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon. [...]

Fears was arrested in 2009 on an aggravated kidnapping charge after abducting a female acquaintance in Texas, media reports show.

More mind-fucking from the writers. Just stop it, you people!
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:15 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The President Trump Movie is going to be full of brief ironic flashbacks, possibly directed by Seth MacFarlane

"Hey Trump remember the time people thought you were a good president?"

[Footage Not Found.jpg]
posted by Talez at 12:15 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

The Weather Channel has devoted its entire front page to coverage of Puerto Rico today, leading with this blunt, all-caps headline

AMERICA, THIS IS STILL HAPPENING
(AV Club story with screenshots for posterity)
posted by jedicus at 12:17 PM on October 20, 2017 [86 favorites]

And that bloc will never abandon him, because he's the first President in a loooong time that is one of their number.

This reminds me of Ta Nehisi-Coates' essay on Trump "The First White President" (also an FPP). It's included as the epilogue of his most recent book and reading it after his essay on the Obama presidency, "My President Was Black" is like a gut-punch. You can debate about his accomplishments as President, but Obama had to be one of the best people to have held the office.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:19 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

> The Southern Strategy was evolved and deployed before most of us were either born or even in elementary school.

It goes way back further than a decade.

American crossroads: Reagan, Trump and the devil down south. How the Republican party’s dog-whistle appeal to racism, refined by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, led inexorably to Donald Trump
posted by homunculus at 12:25 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

I'm sure the President has proof of Kelly's claims and will be presenting it very soon, maybe in the next few weeks; you'll see.

The best proof, really wonderful proof. Believe me.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 12:26 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Today Huckabee-Sanders says that the statements Kelly attributed to Wilson yesterday were made off camera -- and overheard by several people.

And a congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money -- the $20 million -- to build the building. And she sat down, and we were stunned.

I'm stunned that they think this bullshit excuse would fool anyone considering it doesn't jibe AT ALL with Kelly's actual words.
posted by zakur at 12:35 PM on October 20, 2017 [67 favorites]

DNC may be having fundraising issues, but candidates, even unknowns going against incumbents, are not.

@HotlineJosh
Stunning stat: of the 53 House Rs rated as vulnerable by Cook Report, 21 outraised by a Dem challenger in 3rdQ. HUGE number this early
posted by chris24 at 12:42 PM on October 20, 2017 [28 favorites]

@ScaramucciPost is really doubling down on the polls today, asking how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust, the worldwide population of Jews in 1939, and the percentage of Jews worldwide killed in the Holocaust.

They're doing this, of course, in the name of 'education', because they have a pretty graph that supposedly shows that fewer young people know about the Holocaust than older people.

Oh, and they threw a little Hebrew into a tweet, because that makes everyone feel better and not like they're dogwhistling to the deniers.
posted by hanov3r at 12:44 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

I keep coming back to this contemptible Paul Ryan "joke": Every morning I wake up in my office and I scroll through Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend I didn’t see later on.

I hope video of this remark by that smarmy motherfucker makes its way into every anti-Ryan campaign ad from now until November 2018.
posted by duffell at 12:45 PM on October 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

Mental Wimp: This is a painful reminder of a recent realization I've had about the Southern strategy. I used to think it was just one small piece of the jigsaw puzzle that forms the GOP base. That dog-whistling would bring another four or five percent to the polls in November, incremental to the right-to-lifers and tax-cutters. But with the blatant, overt racism and racist language displayed by much of the Trump administration, and the simultaneous clinging to him by 27% or so of the electorate, I'm sure the GOP knew long before it became obvious that frankly racist voters represented nearly a quarter of the electorate, and that the Southern strategy was bringing them a very large chunk of voters. Trump knew that if he called out explicitly to this bloc, he would have a good chance of winning, because he was told this by the GOP. And that bloc will never abandon him, because he's the first President in a loooong time that is one of their number.

Yes, this, and the Southern Strategy casts a wider (racist) net than just Southerners - perhaps one could say it Confeder-afies them? (I won't say it makes them Southern because there are good people fighting the good social-and-economic-justice fight in all states.) There are people flying Confederate flags in Massachusetts! Robert Gould Shaw is no doubt turning in his grave right now.

Time to burn the Confederate flag and say "Whoever flies it is treasonous and un-American!"
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:48 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

there's something especially angrifying about Sanders. I kind of hate saying that, because she's a woman and more competent than her male predecessors. But boy her presence comes through even though I stopped listening to NPR again at the beginning of whateverthefuck-gate this is. And she's not good for laughs, just anger.

Or maybe I'm just angry at all of them, and yeah, epony ha ha, but there's a reason I hang out in these political threads. Angry! All of them! Grrr!
posted by angrycat at 12:49 PM on October 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

Source: Niger Attack Resulted From ‘Massive Intelligence Failure’ [NBC; Ken Dilanian and Courtney Kube]:

A senior congressional aide who has been briefed on the deaths of four U.S. servicemen in Niger says the ambush by militants stemmed in part from a "massive intelligence failure." [...]

The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said the House and Senate armed services committees have questions about the scope of the U.S. mission in Niger, and whether the Pentagon is properly supporting the troops on the ground there.

There was no U.S. overhead surveillance of the mission, he said, and no American quick reaction force available to rescue the troops if things went wrong. If it wasn't for the arrival of French fighter jets, he said, things could have been much worse for the Americans.

After the rescue when it became clear that one soldier was missing, "movements and actions to try and find him and bring him back were considered. They just were not postured properly [to get him]." The body of Sgt. La David Johnson was not recovered until nearly 48 hours after the Oct. 4 attack. [...]

Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of AFRICOM since 2016, told Congress in March that only 20 to 30 percent of AFRICOM's needs for "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" flights were being met. The Marine Corps general said there weren't enough helicopters to find wounded or dead soldiers, and that African partners weren't able to help with recovery missions.

(Waldhauser is a four-star Marine general, btw)
posted by melissasaurus at 12:51 PM on October 20, 2017 [40 favorites]

I won't hold my breath for the Republican-controlled Intelligence and National Security committees to hold wall-to-wall Nigerghazi hearings.
posted by duffell at 12:53 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

How many different Benghazi hearings were held? How long did they go on? How many millions were spent? Yeah.
posted by Justinian at 12:55 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

there's something especially angrifying about Sanders. I kind of hate saying that, because she's a woman and more competent than her male predecessors. But boy her presence comes through

I was just writing a comment to this effect. She absolutely makes my blood boil and I think it's because she IS competent, but it's not that she's doing her job well (which, technically, she is) rather that she's so skilled at lying. Sean Spicer got flustered and stammered his way through the regime's lies, and Huckabee Sanders is a cool as a cucumber.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:59 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Over two years, 37 hearings, and at least $7 million. [source]
posted by melissasaurus at 1:00 PM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

beginning of whateverthefuck-gate

PerpetualWTF-gate is my preferred nomenclature.
posted by nubs at 1:00 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Source: Niger Attack Resulted From ‘Massive Intelligence Failure’

Way more things failed here than just intelligence.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:00 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Sean Spicer got flustered and stammered his way through the regime's lies, and Huckabee Sanders is a cool as a cucumber.

It's like she was raised to do this...
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:03 PM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Never question generals.

@realDonaldTrump
I was never a fan of Colin Powell after his weak understanding of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq = disaster. We can do much better!

@realDonaldTrump
How can General Martin Dempsey tell Obama that delaying the Syria bombardment will have no consequences? He is no Patton or MacArthur.
posted by chris24 at 1:09 PM on October 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

Can someone explain this executive order issued today?
posted by Mister Fabulous at 1:11 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Patton

Something tells me Patton would have beaten the shit out of Donald J. Draftdodger without the slightest hesitation.
posted by mikelieman at 1:11 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

Something that didn't occur to me until I heard a reporter ask iMcMaster: did Trump order the strike? (A: Im not going to discuss that.) That would really explain why he wouldn't have acknowledged this at all.

In other news:

Georgia lawmaker, wife of Tom Price, suggests people with HIV could be 'quarantined' (Max Blau, STAT)

Republican state Rep. Betty Price, a former anesthesiologist who represents people living in the northern Atlanta area, asked in a hearing this week "what are we legally able to do" to limit the spread of HIV throughout the state.

"I don’t want to say the quarantine word — but I guess I just said it," Price said to Dr. Pascale Wortley, director of the Georgia Department of Public Health’s HIV epidemiology section. "But is there an ability, since I guess public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition, so we have a public interest in curtailing the spread… Are there any methods we could do legally to curtail the spread?" [...]

“It’s almost frightening the number of people who are living that are … carriers with the potential to spread,” Price said during the hearing. “Whereas in the past, they died more readily, and then at that point, they’re not posing a risk. So we’ve got a huge population posing a risk if they’re not in treatment.”

posted by Room 641-A at 1:14 PM on October 20, 2017 [41 favorites]

It's a shame that there isn't a sort of...oh, I dunno, a kind of pre-exposure prophylaxis available...
posted by elsietheeel at 1:18 PM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Can someone explain this executive order issued today?

So it looks like the order adds/invokes two additional authorities for use during a declared national emergency; specifically, the one related to activate retired members of the armed services (688) and limits regarding the number of officers returned to active duty through such a method (690). I'm guessing its a clarification of an oversight about these sections on the previous order?
posted by nubs at 1:18 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Mister Fabulous, today's EO appears to give SecDev, et al, the ability to recall retired servicemen as an adjunct to GWB's executive order allowing for the rapid deployment of the Reserve.
posted by hanov3r at 1:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've said this before, but: I'm a vet, my mom & much of my family and friends are vets, and it's not the draft-dodging that bothers me. Not at all.

The military isn't for everyone. The notion of being forced into service feels like a horrifying crime unto itself. The Vietnam War, in particular was dodgy as fuck. I can't blame anyone for not wanting to go. I can't blame anyone for doing what they could to get out of it.

What's sickening is that he plays tough guy after dodging it. What's sickening is his bluster and his mockery of the hardship and sacrifice, everything from STDs being his "personal Vietnam" to attacking the Khans to...god, the list is so long. It's so long and every individual point should stop this whole shitshow.

I don't remotely support the notion that we should require military service of our politicians. I don't care that this dude dodged the draft. But I sure as fuck care that he dodged it and then wants to talk shit and casually risk other people's lives after making that choice.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [91 favorites]

I’ve been angry since 11/8. I’ve been uneasy and, sometimes, afraid since 11/8. I’ve been ashamed of this farce of an administration since 11/8. But this week? I finally put a name to what this whole spectacle deserves: disgust.

The president is a disgusting person. The people surrounding him are disgusting people. Yes, even our precious retired General.

Disgusting.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 1:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [78 favorites]

Are there any methods we could do legally to curtail the spread?

Well gee, I dunno, maybe we could try expanding funding into testing, treatment, prevention, education, and destigmatization, especially among vulnerable populations? Seems like that's a legal thing we could do.

Christ.
posted by jedicus at 1:22 PM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

WTF:
The city of Dickinson, Texas (approximately 30 miles southeast of Houston) recently posted online applications for Harvey Relief Fund grants. The application, however, includes a provision requiring applicants to promise not to boycott Israel.
posted by zarq at 1:24 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

The president is a disgusting person. The people surrounding him are disgusting people.

It certainly has been a great National Character Counts Week, hasn't it?
posted by nubs at 1:26 PM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

Something tells me Patton would have beaten the shit out of Donald J. Draftdodger without the slightest hesitation.

Patton was an empathy-less racist and antisemitic scumbag who would probably get along with Trump just as well as General Kelly does.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:26 PM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

The WH is a shambolic mess. I just cannot believe how a condolence call turned into this massive cock-up.

Normal Presidency: 4 Soldiers killed in Niger. Possibly meets the plane with the remains being returned. Calls the families and offers heart-felt regret and deep gratitude of a nation for the family's enormous sacrifice.

Abnormal Presidency. 4 soldiers killed in Niger. No word from the WH for 2 weeks, golfing when plane carrying remains returns to the USA. Announces after prodding by press that condolence letters are about to be sent out. Claims most past Presidents did not bother to call the families. Calls the families but tells at least one widow that "her guy" knew what he was getting into. When Congresswoman publicizes how much this President has upset the widow and the widow's mother President claims he has proof that the congresswoman is lying. His CoS confirms that the phone call happened as the Congresswoman claimed but then he attempts to smear the Congresswoman's reputation by telling a story about her boastfulness at an event years ago. The President calls the congresswoman wacky and a liar. A video of that event surfaces disproving the CoStaff's recollections. When asked about this, the press secretary said the boastfullness happened just as the CoS recollects only it happened when the cameras were not filming the Congresswoman's speech. Also that it is "inadvisable" to question a military officer. The President's daughter-in-law goes on FOX to claim that there is a transcript of the phonecall, she has read it, and her father-in-law said, "your husband went into battle, you know, knowing that he could be injured, knowing that he could be killed and he still did it because he loves his country and he did it for the American people." which somehow exonerates her father-in-law. The press secretary says there is no transcript.

Probably by the time I have written all this out there will be some new twist to this on-going drama.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:28 PM on October 20, 2017 [76 favorites]

Section 1. Amendment to Executive Order 13223. Section 1 of Executive Order 13223 is amended by adding at the end:

"The authorities available for use during a national emergency under sections 688 and 690 of title 10, United States Code, are also invoked and made available, according to their terms, to the Secretary concerned, subject in the case of the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, to the direction of the Secretary of Defense.""

The original EO Section 1 of 13223 from September 14, 2001, reads:

To provide additional authority to the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation to respond to the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States, the authority under title 10, United States Code, to order any unit, and any member of the Ready Reserve not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit, in the Ready Reserve to active duty for not more than 24 consecutive months, is invoked and made available, according to its terms, to the Secretary concerned, subject in the case of the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, to the direction of the Secretary of Defense. The term ‘‘Secretary concerned’’ is defined in section 101(a)(9) of title 10, United States Code, to mean the Secretary of the Army with respect to the Army; the Secretary of the Navy with respect to the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard when it is operating as a service in the Navy; the Secretary of the Air Force with respect to the Air Force; and the Secretary of Transportation with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:29 PM on October 20, 2017

*SecDef

Damned finger macros. Stupid edit window.
posted by hanov3r at 1:29 PM on October 20, 2017

(Here are the relevant sections of US - 688 and 690.)
posted by elsietheeel at 1:31 PM on October 20, 2017

I work with municipal proposals a lot, and that language pops up in several random places. It's usually part of the city's laws, passed in a fit of We Love Israel Because It's Part of Our Fundamentalist Eschatology Fantasies fervor. The kind of thing a city will vote "yeah, ok" on because it's unlikely to have any real effect on anyone who works with the city (mostly local contractors, not exactly people who work with multinational companies) and it allows the fundie loudmouths to feel like they got what they wanted and everyone can go home.
posted by emjaybee at 1:31 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

The term ‘‘Secretary concerned’’ is defined in section 101(a)(9) of title 10, United States Code, to mean the Secretary of the Army with respect to the Army; the Secretary of the Navy with respect to the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard when it is operating as a service in the Navy; the Secretary of the Air Force with respect to the Air Force; and the Secretary of Transportation with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy.

Dear god, these people are fucking incompetents. The Coast Guard has not been part of the Department of Transportation since 2003.
posted by suelac at 1:37 PM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

I work with municipal proposals a lot, and that language pops up in several random places.

Yeah, but there's a huge difference between a legislative statement that the city "Loves Israel" (or some such nonsense) and demanding that residents swear to and demonstrate their fealty or else they won't receive relief funds from a natural disaster!

In virtually any circumstance, demanding that citizens take a loyalty oath before you will help them with basic living assistance would be heinous. But to do so over a foreign boycott? Revolting.
posted by zarq at 1:37 PM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

So, they amended statute to clarify something that was already a part of the law, but didn't bother fixing an outdated bit.

Sounds about right.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:43 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thank you for the responses on the EO. Apparently they are using it to fill pilot shortages in the Air Force. Sorry for the source, I hate USA Today's website

USA Today, Tom Vanden Brook: Air Force will recall as many as 1,000 retired pilots to address serious shortage
posted by Mister Fabulous at 1:44 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The horribly befuddling thing is that Evangelicals will be the first to agree with you that yes, they are horrible people, they are sinners, they are in need of redemption, they need to repent, they are incapable of participating in good without the grace of God...

until you get to the "political" implications
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:45 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

USA Today, Tom Vanden Brook: Air Force will recall as many as 1,000 retired pilots to address serious shortage

Wonder what percentage of those retired pilots will pass a flight physical.
posted by mikelieman at 1:55 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think we're using the wrong word, or at least what Trump would think of as the wrong word, for the people who do his bidding.

They are not employed by Trump. They do not work for Trump.

A co-worker of mine was once employed by a family owned business as a the manager of their computer services department. At least, that was what his theoretical, official, job was. The family had a different idea, they believed anyone who took their money had but one job: to do exactly what they were told, whatever it was, by any member of the family. Which is how he wound up being ordered to take out the garbage at their homes and various other things a department manager simply shouldn't be expected to do.

They viewed the people who took their money not as employees, but as servants.

The same is true of Trump.

No one works for Trump. No one is employed by Trump.

People **SERVE** Trump.

As far as he's concerned, to take his coin is to bend the knee and swear fealty to the House of Trump as his loyal servant, and he will damn well demand exactly that.

John Kelly is a servant of Trump. He has bent the knee and in so doing forsworn all honor, dignity, and humanity he once had exactly the same as anyone else who serves Trump has done.

Anyone who imagines that Kelly will act with honor has simply not been paying attention. He is a servant of Trump, that is a description that does not allow for honor.
posted by sotonohito at 1:58 PM on October 20, 2017 [53 favorites]

So I noted a while back that the AIDS quilt online disappeared right after the inauguration and its existence was basically scrubbed from Microsoft's website. I found a copy. I think it's some sandbox site of it.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:59 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Room 641-A: Moore and his campaign have not responded to questions about whether he paid the taxes, or to requests that he release his income tax returns.

Hahaha, why the fuck should he? The Angry Orange never did, they will only come out if they're leaked from the Mueller investigation or some similar probe into Trump's past. Normal procedures mean nothing, thanks to Trump being elected President.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:01 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

@kept_simple: reporters on twitter should really use first names to clarify whether a quote is from bernie sanders or sarah sanders (his daughter)
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:08 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Trump's tweets have become indistinguishable from click-bait headlines...

One Weird Trick Prick...
posted by Pinback at 2:11 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

@kept_simple: reporters on twitter should really use first names to clarify whether a quote is from bernie sanders or sarah sanders (his daughter)

¡Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja!
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:12 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]

USA Today, Tom Vanden Brook: Air Force will recall as many as 1,000 retired pilots to address serious shortage

Stand at the entrance of where they're reporting with a sign that says "You knew what you signed up for."
posted by rhizome at 2:13 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

So today it is our patriotic duty to lift up Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove from the streets in South Florida and place their names and pictures high where the world will know that we are proud of their sacrifice, sacrifice for our nation. It is only fitting that their names should be placed on the same mantle and the letters F - B - I because Special Agents Benjamin Grogan and Dove embody the sacred motto for which the agency has become known, please repeat it after me: Fidelty, Bravery, and Integrity. God bless you, god bless the FBI and God bless America.

I love so much that the Wilson speech Kelly flagrantly lied about is actually the speech Donald Trump should have given about the Niger casualties two weeks ago.

The 2017 writers: just fucking with us for shits and giggles, as usual.

Pure swiftboating to go after this. It is a strength for her so they attack it directly with a big huge lie that is so shocking people can't believe it is completely bullshit so they think there must be a grain of truth to it.

Classic Republican campaign tactic. Did they reanimate Atwater?
posted by srboisvert at 2:14 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

darth's suggestion to just identify which Sanders you're talking about by title is quite reasonable: "or their titles (senator, liar, colonel)"
posted by zachlipton at 2:15 PM on October 20, 2017 [21 favorites]

@shermancourt: WASHINGTON (AP) _ Appeals court blocks immigrant teen held in Texas facility from obtaining an abortion, for now.

Fucking assholes. That's the theme of today if you haven't caught on. Fucking assholes.
posted by zachlipton at 2:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [36 favorites]

In its new timeline, Twitter will end revenge porn next week, hate speech in two -- The company has laid out a "safety calendar" with changes through January. (Joe Mullin for Ars Technica, Oct. 20, 2017)

Here are some key dates on Twitter's safety timeline:

10/27: Non-consensual nudity like upskirt photos and hidden webcams will be banned.

11/3: Organizations and groups that advocate violence will be suspended.

11/3: Hate images and hate symbols will be barred, including in avatars and profile headers.

11/3: Unwanted sexual advances will become an explicit rule violation.

11/22: Hateful display names will be barred.

Here's the official blog post, and a direct link to the calendar image, because of fucking course, it's Twitter, why put a lot of text into your blog in a format that is widely accessible?
posted by filthy light thief at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Trump's tweets have become indistinguishable from click-bait headlines...

Or telemarketer sales pitches.

@realDonaldTrump
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to offer historic tax relief to the American people! Join me today: http://45.wh.gov/NhR3gt
posted by chris24 at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

I wonder how long it will take Twitter to boot various GOP groups as Violent Groups that "use violence to advance their cause."
posted by filthy light thief at 2:20 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

11/3: Organizations and groups that advocate violence will be suspended.

"But feel free to really let loose with the violence advocating for the next 2 weeks bros LOL"

What the heck.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

NASA has adopted to the current GOP strategy of "sell the plan, then announce the price at a later date" -- NASA chooses not to tell Congress how much deep space missions cost -- The key question now is: Does Congress care? (Eric Berger for Ars Technica, Oct. 20, 2017)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:23 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

A further entry on the Twitter calendar:

12/14: Content that "glorifies or condones acts of violence that result in death or serious physical harm" will be barred from Twitter. The company already removes content that "includes a violent threat or wishes of serious harm."

(emphasis mine). My impression is that the company doesn't already do this; or at least, they do it very sporadically, poorly, and with no great urgency. So, yeah, not holding my breath on any of this meaning fucking anything.

Twitter is what Ben Kenobi meant when he was talking about Mos Eisley.
posted by nubs at 2:26 PM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Air Force will recall as many as 1,000 retired pilots to address serious shortage

Wouldn't it be cheaper to replace them with drones?
posted by Coventry at 2:29 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

On Twitter, Seth Abramson claims there is now a smoking gun on collusion. (Very long tweet thread, referencing an earlier long tweet thread).

@SethAbramson 12:20 PM - 20 Oct 2017
(THREAD) BREAKING: The thesis discussed at the link below has been confirmed—and it's a smoking gun on collusion.
posted by miguelcervantes at 2:36 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Seth Abramson isn't an actual human being -- he's just a Markov Chain trained on nothing but hundreds of different ways of saying "surely this".
posted by tonycpsu at 2:38 PM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

10/27: Non-consensual nudity like upskirt photos and hidden webcams will be banned.

They weren't already?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:44 PM on October 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

In its new timeline, Twitter will end revenge porn next week, hate speech in two

So get your revenge porn and hate speech now while it's hot? So the revenge porners and hate speechers have a little time to process this unfair and difficult change? So they can move to a new platform without missing a day? All of this shit should have happened yesterday without advance warning.
posted by vverse23 at 2:45 PM on October 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

Twitter's idea of "groups that advocate violence" will surely be Black Lives Matters groups and similar left-wing activists, not literal, like, Nazis.
posted by gucci mane at 2:53 PM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

On Twitter, Seth Abramson claims there is now a smoking gun on collusion.

Seems like a plausible connecting of all the dots, but hearsay isn't a smoking gun. Even if everything there is exactly accurate, Mueller needs confirmation from Manafort, one of the Russians, or someone else with knowledge of Trump/Sessions' direct involvement. That was always going to be the key, someone party to the conspiracy has to be flipped, or any actual written smoking gun found, because even overwhelming circumstantial evidence probably isn't going to be enough to charge Sessions or Trump or get the GOP congress to move anywhere.

Who are we kidding, not even a direct admission from Trump would be enough to move this Congress, but Mueller has to know he's building up to 2018 and beyond.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:57 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Twitter's idea of "groups that advocate violence" will surely be Black Lives Matters groups and similar left-wing activists, not literal, like, Nazis.

Yeah, I do wonder whether "Punch Nazi" accounts will be any less banned than "Throw Degenerates Out Of Helicopters" accounts.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:59 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's not about the timing. Like everything else, twitter's only going to enforce the policies against women, POC, and anti white-supremacist groups. They can state the policy all they want, I'll believe it when they actually do it.

I'm betting they'll ban groups that advocate violence against nazis, "hate symbols" will include BLM logos but not swastikas, and "unwanted sexual advances" will be given the benefit of some MRA asshole in twitter's management structure's doubt.

C'mon folks, It's fucking twitter. It's going to be the same pile of shit, only they hope people complain about the lack of enforcement of the new policies on twitter, 'cause that's how they make money. Twitter will never clean up their act because they're made of the problem.
posted by mrgoat at 3:01 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Can someone explain this executive order issued today?

I think it has the potential to be quite important. Particularly if Trump et al. decide to provoke a significant conflict---let's not call it a "war"---in the immediate, near future.
posted by bonehead at 3:11 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've been just dumbfounded by this interview transcript for at least 20 minutes. Trump is asked why he won't cut taxes for rich people (as if he's not going to do that, come on) and somehow his answer is to explain how Bob Kraft gave him a Super Bowl ring.
posted by zachlipton at 3:15 PM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

10/27: Non-consensual nudity like upskirt photos and hidden webcams will be banned.
11/3: Organizations and groups that advocate violence will be suspended.
11/3: Hate images and hate symbols will be barred, including in avatars and profile headers.
11/3: Unwanted sexual advances will become an explicit rule violation.
11/22: Hateful display names will be barred.

Unless they're 'newsworthy', of course (aka the Trump Exception). Newsworthy really just means 'whatever is driving traffic to Twitter' (i.e. whether it's making Twitter money).

In practice these rules will likely mean nothing.
posted by jedicus at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

And in "Signs the 2017 writers are just fucking with us now", college conservatives dress as babies to "protest" safe spaces.

Far be it for me to kink shame...
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:19 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

And in "Signs the 2017 writers are just fucking with us now", college conservatives dress as babies to "protest" safe spaces.

God, I hope people on campuses everywhere kneel at them until they run like Pence..
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:26 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Politico: Trump personally interviewed U.S. attorney candidates: "One potential nominee would have jurisdiction over Trump Tower and be in a position to investigate the Trump administration."

So now we know why McConnell was talking about suspending the use of "blue slips" where Senators can block nominations to positions in their home state. New York's Senators are Chuck Schumer & Kirsten Gillibrand; Trump needs to install corrupt US Attorneys to run interference for him in New York.
posted by scalefree at 3:37 PM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

Some commenters here have previously expressed a kind of fascination with James Comey's height. Perhaps you will enjoy this photo of Mr. Comey at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. He is shown standing next to Representative Frederica Wilson, who is (evidently) not tall, and who has the effect of making Mr. Comey look especially tall. Marveling at Mr. Comey's height, I temporarily forgot about our current political situation, and experienced a moment of relief.
posted by compartment at 3:37 PM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

I've been just dumbfounded by this interview transcript for at least 20 minutes. Trump is asked why he won't cut taxes for rich people (as if he's not going to do that, come on) and somehow his answer is to explain how Bob Kraft gave him a Super Bowl ring.

Well there's the smoking gun. Putin and Trump have matching Bob Kraft Super Bowl rings.
posted by notyou at 3:44 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]

Is that photo also a little weird looking because it's a wide angle? The edges seem a little skewed.
posted by gucci mane at 3:48 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Perhaps you will enjoy this photo of Mr. Comey at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Collectively they look like they belong in Rivendell. Fellowship of the Scissors?
posted by scalefree at 3:49 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Politico Undocumented teen's case forces appeals court to weigh abortion access

In the legal dispute, the Trump administration is arguing that it is entitled to pursue its interest in "childbirth and fetal life" by not facilitating abortion.

WTF The Justice Dept is "interested in childbirth"? Is that Jeff Sessions? Cuz I know it's not DJT. The sooner Sessions is out the better. Abortion is a constitutional right. Just because a racist misogynist flown in from the 50's is in charge of the Justice Dept. doesn't mean that a woman's right to an abortion is suddenly cancelled.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:50 PM on October 20, 2017 [49 favorites]

Two observations:

- It was hard to top, but I think there's a compelling case that National Character Counts Week has surpassed even Infrastructure Week

- I hate the whole "why isn't this a bigger story?" formulation, but a bunch of Nazis shooting at protesters in Florida really ought to be more of a thing.
posted by zachlipton at 3:55 PM on October 20, 2017 [65 favorites]

Reuters, Partisan feud undercuts Trump-Russia probe, U.S. Democrats charge

Democrats on a congressional panel say members of its Republican majority are trying to sabotage an investigation into suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, raising concerns the two parties will reach contradictory conclusions.

Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee have coached witnesses, scheduled interviews without first requesting important documents, and many fail to attend witness interviews, four sources close to the investigation said.

On one occasion, three sources said, Republican Representative Trey Gowdy told Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and White House aide, that he was testifying voluntarily and could leave whenever he liked. After about two-and-a-half hours, one of the sources said, Kushner took the cue and left before Democrats had finished questioning him. Kushner’s lawyer and Gowdy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The panel has heard from about 10 witnesses, the sources said. But given the lack of preparation and the absence of many Republican members, hearings amount to “going through the motions” rather than a serious investigation, one source said.

Two Republican committee staffers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also criticized what they called a partisan effort to discredit rather than investigate allegations that some aides or advisers to Republican Trump’s election campaign may have colluded with Russia, which has been under U.S. sanctions for several years.

When even Republican staffers are telling the press that this investigation is a joke...
posted by zachlipton at 3:57 PM on October 20, 2017 [46 favorites]

She absolutely makes my blood boil and I think it's because she IS competent, but it's not that she's doing her job well (which, technically, she is) rather that she's so skilled at lying

The worst part is that she obviously really enjoys lying. She loves what she's doing up there. And she can't hide it.

On Twitter, Seth Abramson claims there is now a smoking gun on collusion. (Very long tweet thread, referencing an earlier long tweet thread).

I hate long tweet threads that reference earlier long tweet threads almost as much as I hate Huckabee Sanders.
posted by diogenes at 4:00 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

I hate the whole "why isn't this a bigger story?" formulation, but a bunch of Nazis shooting at protesters in Florida really ought to be more of a thing.

I hadn't heard about it. I think people have linked it in this thread but in case an actual report hasn't been linked, here's one.
posted by cell divide at 4:24 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

A Trump tweet can make it halfway around the world in less time than a meaningful long tweet thread can put its shoes on.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:27 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

The three Nazi shooters had two guns between them, but only one shot was fired, missing everybody, after which all three got back in their truck and fled. Not exactly Blitzkrieg-style engagement (but they could do worse under orders from a real soldier like Gen. Kelly). The best news from a previously-linked story about the 'incident' (I HATE that word) is that the Nazi who fired the one shot is being held on THREE MILLION DOLLARS bail, while his two accomplices are facing ONE MILLION each. If they jump bail, the local court could use the defaulted amount to compensate for the University's absurd security costs (yes, I know that's not how it works, but I can dream, can't I?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:40 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Bernie's bowing out of the Women's convention to visit PR.
posted by Coventry at 4:43 PM on October 20, 2017 [22 favorites]

Oh goody, Joy Reid is in for Chris Hayes tonight, and she started out with a photo of Kelly captioned with KELLY'S LIE and a chiron saying "WH DEFENDS KELLY'S SMEAR OF CONGRESSWOMAN." She's going to play the whole 9-minute Wilson speech and dissect the falsehoods he presented.

I'm gonna sit right back and enjoy the fuck out of this.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:05 PM on October 20, 2017 [34 favorites]

Any chance for a link for Joy Reid? Memail is fine.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 5:16 PM on October 20, 2017

Former Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) excused President Donald Trump’s attacks on a pregnant widow on CNN’s “Out Front” with Erin Burnett.

“Well, I think Americans knew Donald Trump and they knew who they elected and he’s a guy from the streets of Queens if you will,” the former congressman suggested.

The "you knew what you signed up for" BS works for everything!

Also I dare Trump to head on back to the streets of Queens without the Secret Service.
posted by elsietheeel at 5:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

update on the abortion case:

Appeals court delays abortion for undocumented teen; gives government time to find her a sponsor, Maria Sacchetti and Ann E. Marimow, WaPo

A D.C. appeals court has given the federal government until Oct. 31 to find a sponsor for an undocumented, pregnant teenager who is in U.S. custody and seeking to have an abortion, which the Department of Health and Human Services has said it does not want to facilitate.

Lawyers for the girl said in court Friday morning that it would be difficult to find a government-approved sponsor, to take custody of the teen, who is being held in a special detention facility for undocumented minors caught crossing the border into the United States illegally.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 5:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Joy Reid is in for Chris Hayes tonight, and she started out with a photo of Kelly captioned with KELLY'S LIE and a chiron saying "WH DEFENDS KELLY'S SMEAR OF CONGRESSWOMAN."

Passing up a perfect opportunity to use KELLY'S SMEAROS
posted by rhizome at 5:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

zarq:

WTF:
The city of Dickinson, Texas (approximately 30 miles southeast of Houston) recently posted online applications for Harvey Relief Fund grants. The application, however, includes a provision requiring applicants to promise not to boycott Israel.

To be clear, this is totally WTF. It is BS that any resident or company in Dickinson should have to say this.

My read of the article is that this is a requirement by the state of Texas, versus the city requiring it.

I have... issues... with the article. I live relatively close to Dickinson. Close enough that I have boxes of laundry that were recovered from a house that was flooded to the point that one adult and two kids were rescued from the roof by boat, but were not allowed to rescue pets for two more days for other reasons. (The other adult was off doing police stuff and, I imagine, freaking out the whole time.)

We've cleaned the clothes and are holding on to them until they have ANY place to return to.

I don't spend a lot of time in Dickinson, but I am pretty sure Israel almost never crosses the minds of the residents.

From the article:

The text reads: “By executing this Agreement below, the Applicant verifies that the Applicant: (1) does not boycott Israel; and (2) will not boycott Israel during the term of this Agreement.”

Even if a business had a website with GeoCities style blinking banner saying "No funds to Isreal!", I am pretty sure anyone in Dickinson who could revoke the grants would say, "Sorry. Didn't notice. We are busy rebuilding."

Anyone in Dickinson can just say, "Yeah, we won't do that." and they are okay, and then go ahead and do it privately, anyway (which they won't because Israel is not a concern for them at all). I don't like it, for obvious reasons (What ACLU mentioned in the article and the slippery slope argument shows next time they will have to allow Nazis to speak in publi---. TFW....)

Dickinson got fucking hammered by Harvey. Not even on the 500 year (or, maybe 100 year) flood plain, so no one had flood insurance. The picture on that article showing the cars is after water started receding.

Despite the fact that Dickinson is "about 30 miles from Houston", I would also take issue with considering it a suburb of Houston. But, I have rambled enough.

(Oh, but I should mention, if you do plug in dickinson to houston in google maps, driving directions take you right next to Pasadena. I would have guessed Pearland for the Fears, but I can see Pasadena, as well.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 5:27 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Is it just me, or are others also experiencing a lot of wild propaganda on their FB these days? My far-left friends (admittedly the most) are posting anti-Hillary and pro-Putin screeds as if last years election was tomorrow. But some of the media feeds I get are suddenly filled with hard right-wing propaganda, even BBC. I don't remember seeing that last year, this is far worse than the butherremails-stuff.
posted by mumimor at 5:33 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

ACA enrollment schedule may lock millions into unwanted health plans, Amy Goldstein, WaPo

The complication arises when people who already have health plans under the law are automatically re-enrolled in the same plan. In the past, a few million consumers each year have been auto-enrolled and then were sent government notices encouraging them to check whether they could find better or more affordable coverage.

This time, according to a federal document obtained by The Washington Post, the automatic enrollment will take place after it is too late to make any changes. Auto-enrollment will occur immediately after the last day of the ACA sign-up season, which the Trump administration has shortened, leaving the vast majority of such consumers stranded without any way to switch to a plan they might prefer.

That inability is particularly problematic at the moment, health policy specialists say, because political turmoil surrounding the sprawling health care law has contributed to spikes in 2018 insurance rates that might catch customers by surprise, as well as widespread public confusion about this fifth year’s enrollment season.

The administration’s unannounced decision about the nuances of auto-enrollment is part of a pattern in which President Trump’s antipathy for the ACA — he erroneously terms its insurances exchanges “dead” — has filtered into a series of actions and inactions that could suppress the number of Americans who receive coverage through the marketplaces for 2018.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 5:34 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

This is my shocked face.

Exclusive: Pentagon Document Contradicts Trump’s Gold Star Claims

In the hours after President Donald Trump said on an Oct. 17 radio broadcast that he had contacted nearly every family that had lost a military servicemember this year, the White House was hustling to learn from the Pentagon the identities and contact information for those families, according to an internal Defense Department email.

The email exchange, which has not been previously reported, shows that senior White House aides were aware on the day the president made the statement that it was not accurate — but that they should try to make it accurate as soon as possible, given the gathering controversy.

Not only had the president not contacted virtually all the families of military personnel killed this year, the White House did not even have an up-to-date list of those who had been killed.

The exchange between the White House and the Defense secretary’s office occurred about 5 p.m. on Oct. 17. The White House asked the Pentagon for information about surviving family members of all servicemembers killed after Trump’s inauguration so that the president could be sure to contact all of them.

Capt. Hallock Mohler, the executive secretary to Defense Secretary James Mattis, provided the White House with information in the 5 p.m. email about how each servicemember had died and the identity of his or her survivors, including phone numbers.

The email’s subject line was, “Condolence Letters Since 20 January 2017.”

Mohler indicated in the email that he was responding to a request from the president’s staff for information through Ylber Bajraktari, an aide on the National Security Council. The objective was to figure out who among so-called Gold Star families of the fallen Trump had yet to call. Mohler’s email said that the president’s aides “reached out to Ylber looking for the following ASAP from DOD.”

posted by chris24 at 5:58 PM on October 20, 2017 [67 favorites]

“The president’s made contact with all of the families that have been presented to him through the White House Military Office,” she replied. “All of the individuals that the president has been presented with through the proper protocol have been contacted through that process.”

Of course, give him a way to do his favorite thing: deflect and deny responsibility. Nothing is ever his fault.
posted by elsietheeel at 6:11 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is it just me, or are others also experiencing a lot of wild propaganda on their FB these days? My far-left friends (admittedly the most) are posting anti-Hillary and pro-Putin screeds...

In the past week I underwent a huge FB catharsis and unfollowed almost every party, organizing, and political group I'd been following since last NOvember. I've generally felt it to be my obligation to stay engaged and to trade info about who to call about what each day, but I started to realize, over the last couple of weeks, with increasing revelations about how thoroughly compromised all the platforms are, and realizing that the outrage of the day and the endless barrage of news, small bits of information,g radually ground down into memes and zings, was absolutely not making me smarter, more effective, or more engaged. I went back to boring FB which consists mostly of friends and family updates and screens out anything they are posting from meme-based sources. It's only been a week or so but my head already feels a lot clearer, and I have more time to read actual news sources and to think. This has been a very good move so far.
posted by Miko at 6:29 PM on October 20, 2017 [26 favorites]

The Hill: "Inside the country, disrespect is shown for him. This is a regrettable negative component of the U.S. political system," Putin said..."I believe that the president of the United States does not need any advice because one has to possess certain talent and go through this trial to be elected, even without having the experience of such big administrative work. He [Trump] has done this," the Russian leader said. "He won honestly."
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:47 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Of course, give him a way to do his favorite thing: deflect and deny responsibility. Nothing is ever his fault.

Trump can never fail; he can only be failed.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:50 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

GeeDubz on Clownwig: George W. Bush all but called Trump a threat to democracy, saying "bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication."

Kinda touchy about those "conspiracy theories", eh, Dubby? Still lookin' over your metaphorical shoulder?

Okay so which cake is it that I eat to indicate Bush II was not ever okay and comparisons to Trump are useless?

Ah the hell with it. *eats peanut butter from the jar*
posted by petebest at 7:05 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Okay so which cake is it that I eat to indicate Bush II was not ever okay and comparisons to Trump are useless?

Yellowcake from Niger, oddly enough.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:10 PM on October 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Oh Pete, since I gave up drinking, peanut butter from the jar has been a constant solace. I did buy some teeny little espresso size spoons though, because as much solace as I need of late, a real spoon would empty the jar too often. I run out of weed later tonight, with no trips planned to legal states, and I'm a little nervous about that, I can tell you. Unsedated me may just hide under the bed till this is all over. Ill have peanut butter and tiny spoons if anyone wants to join.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:12 PM on October 20, 2017 [25 favorites]

Not only had the president not contacted virtually all the families of military personnel killed this year, the White House did not even have an up-to-date list of those who had been killed.

But flag anthem sonsofbitches merry christmas
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:29 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

[WaPo] "Many Trump voters who got hurricane relief in Texas aren’t sure Puerto Ricans should"

So. much. fucking. rage.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 7:44 PM on October 20, 2017 [78 favorites]

South Korea's New 'Frankenmissile' Would Take Out North Korea's Kim Jong Un and His Nuclear Weapons. I feel so much better now.
posted by scalefree at 7:55 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

OK. So. Yes the President is horrible at military protocol. You wanna know what he's not bad at? Distraction.

One point five trillion ripped away from Medicare and Medicaid BOTH, to fund massive tax-cuts for the wealthy. The Senate, including our newfound hero McCaine, voted to allow their fellow Americans to die of disease and ruined by debt, so the richest among us can sit upon their wealth and not re-invest it in our civilization.

They voted for that on reconciliation. Fifty one of them. One of them a known consort of Russian oligarchs, he spent his 70'th birthday on one of their yachts, John McCain.

Snout to tail-tip. Corrupt swine, literally trying to kill your granma or drive you into debt you will never escape making sure her final years are pleasant.

The GOP is the party that strives for poverty, disease and death of their fellow Americans.

At this point, yes, Kelly is an Honor Wraith - he has sacrificed his honor for power. Let's get over it, as it is nowhere near as important as DO YOU NOT SEE TRUMP DISTRACTING FROM DISASTER?

He's doing this on purpose! And we're all falling for it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:58 PM on October 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

I think we're getting distracted, yes, but I don't think Trump has any goddamn sense to begin with and I don't think it's purposeful. It's just that both things are happening. I can't give him credit for much more than tying his own shoelaces, if in fact he even does that for himself.
posted by uosuaq at 8:01 PM on October 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

At this point, yes, Kelly is an Honor Wraith - he has sacrificed his honor for power. Let's get over it, as it is nowhere near as important as DO YOU NOT SEE TRUMP DISTRACTING FROM DISASTER?

People can be concerned about and pay attention to multiple things at once. Also, yet again, racist and misogynist bullying and abuses of power are not a distraction or unimportant.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:08 PM on October 20, 2017 [26 favorites]

OK. So. Yes the President is horrible at military protocol. You wanna know what he's not bad at? Distraction.

No he's horrible at that too. Much of the time he steps on whatever messaging was trotted out to clean up after his latest blunder & just reinforces it. The problem is that he's such a high pressure fountain of shit that you can't help get multiple spatters on you.
posted by scalefree at 8:11 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Meanwhile in long shot Hail Mary passes, the Write In Campaign for Manhattan DA for Marc Fliedner to oust Cy Vance is getting a lot of press, he’ll be on Brain Lehrer on Monday and he got some new photos from Clayton Cubitt
posted by The Whelk at 8:20 PM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

> The proportion of comments here and headlines elsewhere is heavily skewed, though, such that it certainly feels like the Republican tax bill is not being taken seriously as the threat it is. They got what they wanted with killing healthcare without any of the political price.

I think a lot of people understand that it's a threat, but "Republicans want tax cuts" is kind of "dog bites man." It's something that I expected to happen on or around January 20th, so the fact that it's not already signed into law is a gift from heaven.

Like, what is there to comment about? Of course the Senate passed it, and even with various tribes of the GOP at each others' throats, I fully expect them to come together around the one issue that unites them, and for Trump to sign it into law. And of course the effect on the deficit will be used to say no to important spending in the future, potentially on healthcare. But there's really nothing newsworthy about this. This is what Republicans do -- unlike so much of the Trump presidency, this is, in fact, normal.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:22 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

There's also no "tax bill" yet. They passed a budget resolution which will later allow them to pass a tax bill under reconciliation, once they write it, which will actually be very, very hard. Yes, that's very bad, but hard to explain or rally around at this early stage, because there's no actual bill.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:30 PM on October 20, 2017 [23 favorites]

> They passed a budget resolution which will later allow them to pass a tax bill under reconciliation, once they write it, which will actually be very, very hard.

What's hard about writing a tax cut bill? The 2003 GWB tax cut bill was 18 pages. Without the need to be deficit-neutral (all together now: nobody cares about the deficit) I can't see this one being much larger. There's nothing to these bills -- amend section A, striking dollar amount B and replacing it with amount C. Lather, rinse, repeat, exchange high fives with your donors.

Yes, there's no bill now, but I think it's a formality at this point. Let's just be thankful they dicked around trying to kill Medicaid first.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:58 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House -- Dems have got themselves a solid candidate in UT-04, with Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams jumping in the race. Incumbent Mia Love is not super-popular, and doesn't have a lot of cash on hand. This is far and away the best Dem shot in UT. An initial poll gives Love a 48-42 lead.

** VA gov -- NBC: Dems have a lot of reasons to feel confident about this race (although we aren't).

** 2018 Senate:

-- Remington Research poll in MO has possible GOP candidate Josh Hawley up 48-45 on McCaskill.

-- Early poll in CA shows Feinstein only pulling 40%. I'm going to refer you to the story, because there is some goofiness to how they represented the GOP, but the upshot is that an all-Dem top two seems very possible.

** AL Senate special -- Strategy Research poll gives Moore an 11 point lead over Jones, 51-40.

=> As a note - I'm not going to report detailed campaign finance stuff because it is super-boring, but I will say that Dem 3Q fundraising went quite well for a lot of folks, and less so for the GOP. To the point where even right-leaning pundits said, "...hmmm." Not a one-to-one with victories, of course, but encouraging.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:05 PM on October 20, 2017 [30 favorites]

What's hard about writing a tax cut bill?

Basically the same dynamic as health care. They're going to need a CBO score, and to get one that looks remotely defensible they're going to need to cut major popular middle class breaks like the mortgage deduction, SALT deduction, etc, and make all of that fit within the reconciliation rule. And if Corker and Paul stick to no deficit additions, that's only 50 votes. With McCain and Cochran in poor health. They'll probably still get something done, because that's literally the only reason most of them have to live, but there's a reason they haven't done it yet, it's really more complicated than change a few lines here and there and billionaires pay 0$ from now on.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Remington Research poll in MO has possible GOP candidate Josh Hawley up 48-45 on McCaskill.

MANY EXPLETIVES
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:19 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

As always, not preaching overconfidence, but Hawley has a rep as a fair-haired boy who's never had to work too hard. If any Dem can win here, it's Claire, she'll kick him in the nuts.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Josh Hawley is the Director of your IT group that reads r/mensrights during meetings
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:31 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Guys guys guys! Is it too late for Scoop o'Clock? Cause I got a pretty big one. Remember in the GOP Convention how the plank on Ukraine changed without anybody changing it? Turns out its conception wasn't so immaculate after all. It looks like another Trump adviser has significantly changed his story about the GOP's dramatic shift on Ukraine.
posted by scalefree at 9:31 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Looks like that article is from March.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:39 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Tia Graves Fisher, WaPo: I bought a gun. Then the fake news started.

Some months later, I got a fundraising call on my unlisted landline from a pro-gun group — had my name gotten on some database of gun owners? — conducting a political survey on the Second Amendment. Then, sometime that fall, I started getting the bad “news” about Hillary Clinton.

I recall reading online “news” reports that she was in terrible health. She allegedly had secret brain surgery by some doctor who later mysteriously died. That’s what the story said. Another touted a “whistle blower” who disclosed that Clinton had Parkinson’s disease. Another “news” report alleged she hid a colostomy bag underneath the long tunics she regularly wore on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Donald Trump was all over it, bringing up Clinton’s health with regularity. I wondered why CNN and other outlets weren’t reporting these stories. After hunting around, I was able to determine that the stories were false, of course, but they nonetheless served as a reminder of Clinton’s bout with pneumonia and that she nearly collapsed getting into a car at an event. The false stories reminded me of the true ones.

The author lives in Wisconsin.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:42 PM on October 20, 2017 [34 favorites]

Looks like that article is from March.

From Twitter, rather reliable user in my feed. Not sure if he misfired or I misread his intent. I'll own it.
posted by scalefree at 9:50 PM on October 20, 2017

That BI article is several months old, and it doesn't mean much without the context of Seth Abramson tweeting about it this evening.

For whatever it is actually worth.
posted by monopas at 10:03 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

NYT, Republicans Consider Sharp Cut in 401(k) Contribution Limits

So the 401(k) was intended to replace pensions, transferring investment risk from employers to workers. Now they want to basically take that away too in order to give tax cuts to the same companies that stopped providing pensions.

What did I say the theme of the day was again? Ducking ass holes. No iPhone autocorrect that’s not quite it, but good try. Fucking assholes.
posted by zachlipton at 11:14 PM on October 20, 2017 [57 favorites]

Wowee, when they declared National Character Counts Week, they really meant "week."

I think they really meant "weak."
posted by greermahoney at 11:21 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

Re: Nazis at state schools--here come the lawsuits

Ohio State denies request for white nationalist speaker, Dake Kang, AP/NYT

Ohio State University has denied a request to rent space for an appearance by white nationalist Richard Spencer, citing risks to public safety.

“The University values freedom of speech,” the letter [from an attorney representing Ohio State] said. “Nonetheless, the University has determined that it is not presently able to accommodate Mr. Padgett’s request to rent space at the university due to substantial risks to public safety, as well as material and substantial disruption.”

Earlier Friday, a lawyer for Spencer’s associates said he planned to follow through on a threat to file a lawsuit against Ohio State...

The university said last week it couldn’t accommodate a Spencer event as requested on Nov. 15 for safety reasons but would decide by the end of this week whether viable alternatives existed. Bristow said he’d sue the university if it didn’t decide by 5 p.m. Friday to allow Spencer to speak.

The University of Cincinnati was faced with a similar deadline but decided last week to allow Spencer to hold an event there. Both universities were contacted last month about allowing Spencer to visit but delayed making final decisions until Bristow threatened to sue...

The same day [as the Gainesville event], another lawyer filed a federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania State University for denying a request to rent space for Spencer to speak, claiming free speech violations. Penn State’s president said when turning down the request that the university supports free speech but such an event could result in “disruption and violence.”

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 12:39 AM on October 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

CNN, Tom Steyer launches $10 million campaign to impeach Trump

Democratic mega-donor and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer is spending what an aide says is "well over $10 million" on a national TV ad campaign Friday calling for President Donald Trump's impeachment.

The campaign is a bid by Steyer -- who has not ruled out a run for office himself -- to "demand that elected officials take a stand" on an issue Democratic leaders have so far largely avoided.

"A Republican Congress once impeached a president for far less. And today, people in Congress and his own administration know that this President is a clear and present danger who is mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons," Steyer says in the ad, which largely features him speaking directly to the camera.
...
Instead, the ads point to a new website -- NeedToImpeach.com -- which features an open letter where Steyer takes clear aim at California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, citing -- without using her name -- Feinstein's comment that Trump "can be a good President." Feinstein has since downplayed the comment.

I mean, maybe the money is better spent on Congressional races instead of these ads, but hey, it's something, and repeating "Trump" and "impeachment" over and over again is a good start.
posted by zachlipton at 1:06 AM on October 21, 2017 [52 favorites]

repeating "Trump" and "impeachment" over and over again is a good start.

Worth noting, maybe, that motions to impeach Nixon (over bombing Cambodia) were being introduced long before Watergate was a thing. So, yeah, maybe it's time to start beating the "impeachment" drum loudly so it's thoroughly planted in the Congressional & public consciousness by the time the Mueller investigation wraps up.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:46 AM on October 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

The same day [as the Gainesville event], another lawyer filed a federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania State University for denying a request to rent space for Spencer to speak, claiming free speech violations. Penn State’s president said when turning down the request that the university supports free speech but such an event could result in “disruption and violence.”

And hey, if they REALLY don't mind assuming the risk, putting up a $10,000,000 performance bond won't be a problem, right Spencer? Oh, you can't get that pro-bono, like your lawyer-jerk friends filing shit for you?

Free Market FTW!
posted by mikelieman at 4:18 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

maybe it's time to start beating the "impeachment" drum loudly so it's thoroughly planted in the Congressional & public consciousness by the time the Mueller investigation wraps up.

Normalize the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. I know we're sold on the idea, but just getting it out there will move us forward. Imagine Rush/Hannity/Whatever Idiots spending a couple of segments on "How crazy is it that crazy libs have this crazy idea about impeaching The President???"

That's right. Keep repeating the word "Impeach" for us... Please don't throw me in the brier patch!
posted by mikelieman at 4:28 AM on October 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

I'm all in favor of repeating "Trump" and "impeachment" over and over again. In case anyone asks "impeached? What for?" Here's that draft list of charges we came up with in some of the earlier threads, again... interested if anyone would add anything to this now.

- He is violating the emoluments clause, and as a result is receiving bribes from foreign powers.

- There is evidence that his campaign colluded with Russia to spread false propaganda, hack into state elections databases, and sabotage his political opponents by stealing and publishing their private communications.

- He's obstructed justice by firing and trying to intimidate the head of the FBI who was investigating Russian activity

- He is undermining our national security by leaking intelligence to Russian agents, refusing to take responsibility for military engagements, and neglecting diplomacy

- He has no understanding of the Constitution and is ridiculously unqualified to lead

- He lies constantly and undermines trust in the US government

I've been trying to collect lists of the most awful policies and scandals which are not necessarily impeachable offenses, as well, just because I don't think it serves us well to forget... And it is so hard when there is a new one every day. I think this link has a good list. In addition to the charges above...

-The president revealed highly classified information to foreign leaders for no apparent strategic purpose.

- He waffled on condemning white- supremacist, Nazi and Ku Klux Klan protesters.

- He pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for violating a direct court order to stop racially profiling people.

-He persisted in condemning and seeking to judges, science, the news media and, indeed, any source of authority that disagreed with him.

-He has insulted our allies abroad — as well as the leadership of his own party.

That piece also quotes Bob Corker and James Flapper questioning Trump's fitness to serve.

Here is one called 13 Trump scandals you forgot about. And here is a more recent list that includes all the charter flights and so on.

I've also been repeatedly asked by baffled conservatives what, specifically the "resistance" thinks it is resisting. I have listed these policies as my personal resistance priorities...

- The "Muslim ban" (no more acceptable than a Jewish ban would be.)

- Wanting to round up 11 million peaceful people out of the homes they have lived in for years because they don't have the right papers

- From the campaign... "Bomb the shit out of them." "Take the oil." "Torture works." "You have to take out their families." To say nothing of our nukes... "Why can't we use them?" he said.

- Trying to take away insurance coverage of the pre-existing condition my kids were born with.

- Accelerating climate change, destroying cities and farmland around the world.

- Serving Russia's agenda of undermining all our alliances and our democracy itself ("So called" judges? Really?)

I dunno. I like lists and summaries. So much goes on in these threads, sometimes I think it is nice to review... Feel free to copy and paste if any of that is helpful to you. I keep those in a notes app on my phone so I can deploy them on social media whenever somebody asks.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:54 AM on October 21, 2017 [140 favorites]

Y'all, I hate to go on and on about my poor mom in these threads, but her mental distress over the whole situation is probably the way Trump is directly affecting me most. The normalization of this administration makes her feel isolated and like she's going mad (and did, in reality, actually contribute to her past hospitalization, so yeah). She doesn't have metafilter to give her a sense that she Isn't the only person on Earth who sees the naked emperor. So bring on your Larry Flynts, your Tom Steyers. Let's normalize us some impeachment talk.
posted by thebrokedown at 4:59 AM on October 21, 2017 [50 favorites]

Penn State’s president said when turning down the request that the university supports free speech but such an event could result in “disruption and violence.”

Maybe Spencer should tell them that he's a football coach. They'd not only rent him the space, they'd hire him.
posted by delfin at 5:10 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

(I think I really need to add the mishandling of Puerto Rico to my lists.)

(Also should be "James Clapper" and "seeking to discredit" sorry I'm so clumsy-thumbed.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:11 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

DEVELOPING: Trump authorizes release of JFK assassination documents despite concerns from federal agencies (Staff, WaPo)

The National Security Council had urged President Trump to withhold the last batch of government documents that could shed more light on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act mandated the release of millions of pages related to Lee Harvey Oswald’s fatal shooting of Kennedy within 25 years. The final set of documents must be revealed by Oct. 26, and only Trump has the authority to push back the deadline.

Earlier this week Trump confidant Roger Stone told Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that he spoke to Trump and urged the president to release all the documents.

posted by Room 641-A at 5:59 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

(insert your own Lee Hillary Oswald joke here)
posted by delfin at 6:03 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

If it turns out he was right about Ted Cruz's dad....
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:06 AM on October 21, 2017 [23 favorites]

WaPo Editorial Board: John Kelly owes the congresswoman an apology

@realDonaldTrump
I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!
5:07 AM · Oct 21, 2017
posted by Room 641-A at 6:16 AM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

John Kelly - like everyone else in this terrifying sideshow - is a nasty piece of work
posted by Myeral at 6:19 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson

I deeply appreciate Trump's stupidity at moments like this.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:26 AM on October 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

The Civilian-Military Divide: General Kelly is a Canary in the Coal Mine While we’ve seen this type of divide emphasized in the discussion over policing and the use of force by law enforcement, Gen Kelly’s statements yesterday were, perhaps, the most explicit example of the civilian-military divide I’ve seen or heard in the past decade.

One of the most important discussions we had in the my seminar’s seminar room at USAWC, which we also engaged in within the USAWC team assigned to work on the Profession of Arms study, was the discussion of how an All Volunteer Force during a time of extended war and conflict relates to the vastly larger society of civilians. There was great concern that if a gap was allowed to develop, grow, and harden that the All Volunteer Force, especially those who make a career of their military service, will grow so estranged from the rest of American society as to not just become a distinct sub-culture, but one that threatens the very state and society it is sworn to defend.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:28 AM on October 21, 2017 [40 favorites]

(I think I really need to add the mishandling of Puerto Rico to my lists.)

It seems like Puerto Rico is on it's way to becoming the longest power blackout in the U.S. -- since the discovery of electricity.

Source: @EricHolthaus

It's worth having a read of the thread, and that of the quoted tweet. There are a whole litany of fuck-ups, including those without power still getting billed.
posted by Buntix at 6:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [17 favorites]

SecretAgentSockpuppet and anyone else working to take better care of themselves while hiding under beds eating peanut butter from the jar with tiny spoons, may I recommend this pairing (MeFi-donate amazon link), which is a lovely, fizzy melatonin delivery beverage that will help bring the sweet comfort of sleep. Although there is a slightly elevated risk of waking up under the bed with tiny peanut butter spoons in one's hair.
posted by petebest at 6:32 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

I deeply appreciate Trump's stupidity at moments like this.

Eighth dimensional chess.

@KevinMKruse (historian, author)
The chain of unforced errors from the White House this week has been amazing. To recap...
- Asked why he hadn't commented on the soldiers killed in Niger, Trump shifted the discussion to calls to Gold Star families.
- Trump claimed that he always called Gold Star families but his predecessors almost never did. The latter was an obvious lie.
- But, as reporters dug into it, Trump's claim about his own record was also quickly proven to be an embarrassing lie.
- Meanwhile, the admin got into a public feud with one family and a side spat with another over a promised check not yet sent.
- Desperate now, they then trotted out the Chief of Staff, a former four-star general and a Gold Star father himself, as cover.
- Kelly then launched into a bizarre attack on a congresswoman who was an old friend of the Gold Star family at the heart of this
- That attack centered on his story about a 2015 speech she gave which, when checked, proved to be yet another bald-faced lie.
- When the press followed up on that lie, the press secretary said it would be "inappropriate" for anyone to disparage a general
- That was offensive enough on its own, but of course it then led to coverage of all the times Trump himself disparaged generals
- This should've been a non-story, a sadly now routine offering of condolences to a family for their sacrifice.
- Instead, through a chain of clumsy lies and insulting claims, the White House kept digging itself deeper and deeper. Unreal.
posted by chris24 at 6:36 AM on October 21, 2017 [106 favorites]

Can't stop, won't stop.
posted by thebrokedown at 6:41 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Per this morning's tweet (*pause for facepalm, inhale*), Colonel Klownwig said he'd release the JFK files remaining . . . or maybe he wouldn't. Which is pretty eighth-dimensional Jenga right there.

Trump Likely to Block Release of Some JFK Files, PHILIP SHENON, Politico, October 20, 2017, written yesterday before the tweet (*pause for extended curse-grumbling*), but argues that it's unlikely, and yet, y'know, it's an idiot monkey with a gun Trump, so - ?
posted by petebest at 6:48 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Kelly then launched into a bizarre attack on a congresswoman who was an old friend of the Gold Star family at the heart of this

Another thing that occured to me is that La David Johnson's widow is not only having to deal with the loss of her husband and the father of her children. But also that as a result the "leader" of her country, its most prominent military* person, and the weaponised right are now attacking and trying to destroy the reputation of her family's friend and benefactor because she provided them support when they needed it most.


* Currently in a civilian role perhaps, but that's a distinction without a difference given the PR emphasis on him being a general.
posted by Buntix at 6:53 AM on October 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!

Sgt. LaDavid Johnson's funeral is this morning. So this prick is continuing to cause a scene on this as the widow is putting her husband's body into the ground.
posted by chris24 at 7:03 AM on October 21, 2017 [62 favorites]

John Kelly - like everyone else in this terrifying sideshow - is a nasty piece of work

Trying to think of a member of the Trump administration who ISN'T a sociopath.... Trying... Trying...

I got nothing.
posted by mikelieman at 7:06 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Anecdotal data point: a family member needed to renew her border stuff this past weekend, and there's a new form. The new form no longer asks if you are/were a Nazi. There are a shitload of new questions, two pages in teeny-tiny font, so be prepared. And bring your reading glasses, unlike the elderly Italian gentleman next to us who hadn't brought his, and was stuck.

There are a LOT of new questions. It's gonna take a while. That's probably the intent.

Form name and number, please.
posted by jointhedance at 7:09 AM on October 21, 2017

Colonel Klownwig

Mostly, I'm not a fan of the nicknames, but this, and Buntix' comment made me realize that there is a more than zero chance he'll have a military uniform designed for himself, to go with that military parade he wants so much. Like every other 3rd world dictator.

Impeach Trump, before it's too late
posted by mumimor at 7:09 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Sgt. LaDavid Johnson's funeral is this morning. So this prick is continuing to cause a scene on this as the widow is putting her husband's body into the ground.

He also just retweeted some wingnut claiming Obama put Wilson up to it, with a picture of the two together, and added, "People get what is going on!" Yup, keep digging, Donald. Make it more and more overtly about race. That'll go well.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:10 AM on October 21, 2017 [23 favorites]

And he retweeted an account this morning that accuses the mother and widow of politicizing Johnson's death.

@realDonaldTrump Retweeted EaglePundit
People get what is going on!

@RealEagleBites
... facing team Obama and Hillary Clinton. So they rolled out their last hope, Federica Wilson

---

@RealEagleBites
SHAME: that slain soldier's family has colluded w extremist Dems to POLITICIZE death of Army hero. Myeshia Johnson, Cowanda Jones-Johnson
posted by chris24 at 7:11 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

It never fucking fails. They constantly find infinite ways to go even lower, to be more obscenely offensive. And now we're about two days away from a grieving military family live on the news begging him to leave them alone and describing the abuse and threats they're probably already receiving from horrible Trump fans.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:17 AM on October 21, 2017 [33 favorites]

It never fucking fails. They constantly find infinite ways to go even lower, to be more obscenely offensive.

They'll always double down on racist bullshit to make sure those 27% don't stop hollering their approval. As long as they can rely on them to provide positive feedback, they'll keep amplifying their deplorable message.
posted by mikelieman at 7:21 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

So - military people who aren't already in the Trump compound get this unprecedented, baffling, tsunami of disrespect being rolled over the whole of armed services past and present, right?

I mean, that respect is a, y'know, a big part of the deal, isn't it? Because there hasn't been a lot of fuss raised by them so far as my godlike corporate news media tells me. Not from leaders and former/retired for obvious reasons, that is.
posted by petebest at 7:22 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

So yeah, now he's directly attacking a Gold Star family, if there any ambiguity about that before.
posted by angrycat at 7:26 AM on October 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

> if there any ambiguity about that before.

[RON HOWARD] Gah, fuck this, I'm out.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [22 favorites]

And don't forget, at the heart of the La David Johnson story is the fact that he was apparently left behind in a rescue mission by private military contractors.
posted by Rykey at 7:38 AM on October 21, 2017 [39 favorites]

I have every cornfidence that this 100% Republican-led government will get to the bottom of this military disaster and make substantive changes, even if it takes years, and 43 separate Congressional hearings at a cost of over seven million dollars.
posted by petebest at 7:49 AM on October 21, 2017 [18 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Great book just out, "A Place Called Heaven," by Dr. Robert Jeffress - A wonderful man!

6:52 PM - 20 Oct 2017

I feel like we haven't talked about this. Please someone explain to me why Trump is pumping for a weird evangelical book that claims rare knowledge about the furniture of the eternal.
posted by dis_integration at 7:52 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ain't gonna link to it, but the NRA has a new ad imploring their members to kill members of the press who criticise Trump. It's a real peach, let me tell you.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:56 AM on October 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

Please someone explain to me why Trump is pumping for a weird evangelical book that claims rare knowledge about the furniture of the eternal.

According to the LA Times, Jeffress had just done a Trump-sucking spot on Fox Business.

He's also the loon who said Trump was appointed by God to kill Kim Jong-un.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:56 AM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Jeffress also thinks Catholicism is a satanic cult.
posted by chris24 at 8:04 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I feel like we haven't talked about this. Please someone explain to me why Trump is pumping for a weird evangelical book that claims rare knowledge about the furniture of the eternal.

I would give anything to have actual Jesus come down from a cloud and say, " You're going STRAIGHT TO HELL FOR ETERNITY, Donny Two Scoops!"

I'm not an atheist, I'm not anti-religious, I'm spiritual, etc. but the nauseating hypocrisy of the Giant Rancid Circus Peanut and the Religious Right kissing each other's butts is like being forced to swallow ipecac after eating stale tuna fish for all eternity. Fred Clark is right - Southern Baptists and religious fundamentalists exist to legitimize white supremacy. They are not religious in the sense of "following the teachings of Jesus" at all. I wish all kinds of bad fates on them.

The Balloon Juice article on the civilian-military divide was exactly what I needed to read this morning to consolidate all the thoughts I've been having on why having "the troops" be a class apart from mainstream America is a bad thing. Thanks for posting.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:04 AM on October 21, 2017 [25 favorites]

Ain't gonna link to it, but the NRA has a new ad imploring their members to kill members of the press who criticise Trump. It's a real peach, let me tell you.

I am at a point where my only question is, on a scale of 1 being Menacing Generalities and 10 naming specific individuals and shrieking SHOOT THEM NOW, what the level of explicitness is in that ad.

Guessing around a seven.
posted by delfin at 8:11 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

It's pretty much a death threat.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Something they can be sued for, right?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2017

Jesus, that NRA ad feels like it's fake but that's their spokeswoman all right. I kind of want to transcribe it for you guys but that would force me to watch it again. All I remember is "They want to build their utopia on the ashes of our homes" and "they will perish in the political flames of their own fires." It's not /exactly/ saying "shoot them", and it's not /just/ targeting the press, so it's unlikely they can be sued for it, but it's very "come the fuck on you assholes what the fuck do you think you are doing."
posted by corb at 8:28 AM on October 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

There's a transcript here.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:29 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

They're doing the thing that maximizes sales of firearms and ammunition. We should expect nothing more or less.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Something they can be sued for, right?

Has the president of the united states been sued for encouraging second-amendment people to murder his electoral opponent?
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

A wee bit more on Jeffress from the Dallas Observer - MAY 24, 2016.

Top 10 Things First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress Thinks

10. Robert Jeffress thinks that the Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage is the worst in the history of the court.

9. Robert Jeffress thinks that abortion caused 9/11.

8. Robert Jeffress thinks gay sex might make you explode.

7. Robert Jeffress thinks President Obama is paving the way for the Antichrist.

6. Robert Jeffress thinks that the Chamber of Commerce, because it wants to respect the rights of transgender individuals, is a bigger threat to freedom of religion than the Islamic State.

5. Robert Jeffress thinks Donald Trump has a grasp of the issues.

4. Robert Jeffress thinks that the Fifty Shades of Grey movie might have been a signifier of the end times.

3. Robert Jeffress thinks Pope Francis owes Donald Trump an apology for questioning Trump's faith.

2. Robert Jeffress thinks pedophilia and homosexuality are connected.

1. Robert Jeffress thinks contemporary American Christians face similar challenges to Jews in pre-war Germany.

_{[summarised from original]}


Seems like he's been brown nosing Trump for fun and profit for a while now.

But then, let's not forget Obama was friends with Jeremiah Wright who said things like:

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that, y'all. Not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people that we have wounded don't have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

Which, while not utterly delusional or manifestly untrue, showed a truly unacceptable lack of jingoism.
posted by Buntix at 8:32 AM on October 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

"come the fuck on you assholes what the fuck do you think you are doing."

They think they're inciting their followers to murder journalists while maintaining a thin veneer of legal deniability.
posted by EarBucket at 8:32 AM on October 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

So we can designate the NRA as a terror organization soon right? Whats the difference between that and any number of ISIS videos?
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:35 AM on October 21, 2017 [29 favorites]

Maybe if the Democrats would try to understand them a little better . .

Some months later, I got a fundraising call on my unlisted landline from a pro-gun group — had my name gotten on some database of gun owners? — conducting a political survey on the Second Amendment. Then, sometime that fall, I started getting the bad “news” about Hillary Clinton.

This is sleazy, wrong, and totally legal. The Democrats will be politely driving everyone nuts by showing up in our doorways to preach at us, or fill our mailboxes with milquetoast junk, or call us a million times - and all of that is like bringing a box of cereal to a knife fight.

Not even good cereal. Tom Perez! NEW STRATEGIES motherfucker! Do you speak it?!
posted by petebest at 8:36 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

Whats the difference between that and any number of ISIS videos?
posted by Talez at 8:37 AM on October 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

Well, now we know why so few elected Republicans have turned against Trump. It's because they have the NRA's guns (fundraising) pointed directly at their heads.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Aaand there it is.

Ivanka Trump Somehow Didn't Mention the Donald J. Trump Foundation In Her Financial Disclosure Report (Celeste Katz, Newsweek)

Maybe it just slipped her mind.

Ivanka Trump's federal financial disclosure report doesn't mention her past involvement with the charitable foundation that bears her family's name—and which remains under investigation for self-dealing.

President Donald Trump's daughter is working as an advisor to him in Washington while her two adult brothers run the family's business empire. As a result, she was required to submit details about her income and jobs outside the federal government over a period of several years before she joined the executive branch.

But even after multiple updates, Ivanka Trump's financial disclosure form appears to make no mention of her time as a director of the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating for fraud.

posted by Room 641-A at 9:20 AM on October 21, 2017 [58 favorites]

4. Robert Jeffress thinks that the Fifty Shades of Grey movie might have been a signifier of the end times.

To be fair, I would agree with him if he'd said this in re to "Fifty Shades Darker."
posted by raysmj at 9:34 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

Ivanka Trump Somehow Didn't Mention the Donald J. Trump Foundation In Her Financial Disclosure Report

I was at a soccer match once where the home team's playing was so absolutely piss-poor that the crowd started cheering for the other team when they'd score, just because it was more fun than beating the dead horse that our team did, in fact, totally suck that night.

So in that spirit, on reading this news, I'm cheering for Ivanka. It's clear nothing is stopping anybody in your family from getting anything but a new form every time they, and the accountants and lawyers they hire, "forget" to include the things the forms ask for, so you go girl! The rest of us would be paying a fine, or going to jail, or at the very least be denied a sweet place at the table of power for such lapses in memory, but y'all bring fraud and tyranny to the level of high art—and if the system allows you to get away with it, more power to you. Bravo!

Fuck it. If cheering for corruption feels better than letting it ruin this beautiful Saturday fall afternoon, then I'm choosing that today. I'll be back to lava-hot rage soon enough.
posted by Rykey at 10:00 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

Has the president of the united states been sued for encouraging second-amendment people to murder his electoral opponent?

I don't know, has anyone tried to sue him yet?

Seriously, there are things that can legally be done, and sometimes it feels like all we are missing is the will to do them. I am not asking "can't we sue over the NRA ad" because I'm asking whether it's worth it, I am asking because I want to know whether there are legal grounds yet, I am asking whether this fits the legal definition of inciting riot.

If it doesn't fit by the legal definition of the term, then that's one thing. But if it does, and the only reason we haven't taken action is because of despondency, then fuck that - give me the number of the guy in the ACLU who'll take this on, point me at the kickstarter where somene's doing the test case, let's get this party started, y'all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:03 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

How every investor lost money on Trump Tower Toronto (but Donald Trump made millions anyway):

Let’s say you’re Donald Trump.

It’s 2002 and you’ve agreed to have your name emblazoned across the top of the tallest residential tower in Canada, a $500-million, five-star condo-hotel in downtown Toronto.

Here’s the thing: Only months into the project, your lead developer is publicly exposed in the pages of the Toronto Star as a fugitive fraudster on the run from U.S. justice. Your major institutional partner — the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company — bails shortly after.

Your remaining partners in the deal — a group of investors assembled by the criminal who was just outed — include a New York camera store owner, a former Chicago nursing-home administrator, two small-time landlords in Britain and a little-known Toronto billionaire who earned a fortune in the former Soviet Union.

[...]

In the last decade, more than 400 condominium towers of 14 storeys or more have been successfully built in Toronto, according to records at City Hall. Among those, the half-dozen industry insiders and analysts interviewed for this story could identify only one that went bankrupt after completion: the Trump International Hotel and Tower Toronto.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:04 AM on October 21, 2017 [24 favorites]

every cornfidence

Typo? or pun that went over my head? Either way, I approve.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:13 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Jon Schwarz, The Intercept: It Didn’t Just Start Now: John Kelly Has Always Been a Hard-Right Bully

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s gruesome defense Thursday of President Trump’s call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson was shocking.

But it should not have been a surprise. Any examination of Kelly’s past public remarks makes clear he is not a sober professional, calculating that he must degrade himself in public so he can remain in place to rein in Trump’s worst instincts behind the scenes. Rather, Kelly honestly shares those instincts: He’s proudly ignorant, he’s a liar, and he’s a shameless bully and demagogue.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:25 AM on October 21, 2017 [46 favorites]

Republican official 'would have shot' Guardian reporter attacked by Gianforte

“If that kid had done to me what he did to Greg, I would have shot him,” Karen Marshall, vice-president of programs for Gallatin County Republican Women, told the Voice of Montana radio program on Thursday. [...] “That kid came on private property, came into a private building, and went into a very private room that I would not even have gone into,” Marshall said. “It was a setup. A complete setup. He just pushed a little too hard.”

Montana's a small place for a big state and it's a funny feeling to see a person you've previously argued with on social media go on the radio to say that it's OK to kill people for "pushing a little too hard." Not ha-ha funny, though.

Hope my neighbors don't murder me soon, ha ha
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:29 AM on October 21, 2017 [71 favorites]

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s gruesome defense Thursday of President Trump’s call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson was shocking.

At this point I would hope that Marines aren't happy about Kelly's racist lies.
posted by mikelieman at 10:35 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Hope my neighbors don't murder me soon, ha ha

It's particularly scary to consider that this increase in violent rhetoric (and actual violence) is happening while the perpetrators are winning on every front. Eventually (god willing) they will be on the losing side. I don't imagine losing will result in a decrease in their violent tendencies.
posted by diogenes at 10:41 AM on October 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

Holy Fuck, that 401k article. :|

I'm going back to bed.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 10:43 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Kevin D. Williamson, National Review: The White-Minstrel Show

We rarely used to put it in racial terms, unless we were talking about Eminem or the Cash-Me-Ousside Girl or some other white person who has embraced (or affected) some part of black popular culture. With the Trump-era emergence of a more self-conscious form of white-identity politics — especially white working-class identity politics — the racial language comes to the surface more often than it used to. But we still rarely hear complaints about “acting un-white.” Instead, we hear complaints about “elitism.” The parallels to the “acting white” phenomenon in black culture are fairly obvious: When aspiration takes the form of explicit or implicit cultural identification, however partial, with some hated or resented outside group that occupies a notionally superior social position, then “authenticity” is to be found in socially regressive manners, mores, and habits. It is purely reactionary.

Republicans, once the party of the upwardly mobile with a remarkable reflex for comforting the comfortable, have written off entire sections of the country — including the bits where most of the people live — as ‘un-American.’ The results are quite strange. Republicans, once the party of the upwardly mobile with a remarkable reflex for comforting the comfortable, have written off entire sections of the country — including the bits where most of the people live — as “un-American.” Silicon Valley and California at large, New York City and the hated Acela corridor, and, to some extent, large American cities categorically are sneered at and detested. There is some ordinary partisanship in that, inasmuch as the Democrats tend to dominate the big cities and the coastal metropolitan aggregations, but it isn’t just that. Conservatives are cheering for the failure of California and slightly nonplussed that New York City still refuses to regress into being an unlivable hellhole in spite of the best efforts of its batty Sandinista mayor. Not long ago, to be a conservative on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was the most ordinary thing in the world. Now that address would be a source of suspicion. God help you if you should ever attend a cocktail party in Georgetown, the favorite dumb trope of conservative talk-radio hosts.

We’ve gone from William F. Buckley Jr. to the gentlemen from Duck Dynasty. Why?

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:47 AM on October 21, 2017 [21 favorites]

Holy Fuck, that 401k article. :|

I'm going back to bed.

Good idea. Conserve your energy because you're going to be working into your 80s.
posted by diogenes at 10:48 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Republican official 'would have shot' Guardian reporter attacked by Gianforte

No consequences, of course. There is no law. There is only power, and who holds it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:50 AM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Johnny Wallflower: We’ve gone from William F. Buckley Jr. to the gentlemen from Duck Dynasty. Why?

Vote for a Donald, expect ducks?
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:51 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Holy Fuck, that 401k article. :|

It's dragging money back in from the upper middle class. Like the articles says, a lot of people will convert to Roths that will be more effective but you can only get a Roth if you earn less than $186,000.

The super rich on the other hand have all their stuff as investments that pay dividends at 20% tax rates. They care not for your petty 401k struggles, foolish mortal, who will have to take your disbursements as income taxed at the income tax rate at the time.
posted by Talez at 10:59 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

At this point I would hope that Marines aren't happy about Kelly's racist lies.

I know a few marines and follow them on social media and they are not ok with Kelly’s statements.
posted by photoslob at 11:04 AM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

The other piece of the 401k thing is that it doesn’t pull a whole lot more money into the treasury... those savings will be taxed when withdrawn. It’s a gimmick to boost short term revenue.

I don’t see how the proposal survives, given the constituencies it gores.
posted by notyou at 11:10 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

you can only get a Roth if you earn less than $186,000

Roth IRA, yes.

But Roth 401k has the same limits as traditional 401k. And I bet they won't lower the contribution limit on Roth 401k. As notyou notes, this is all about pushing people into Roth so that they can collect taxes now (at contribution) rather than later (at withdrawal).
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:11 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

I don’t see how the proposal survives, given the constituencies it gores.

Upper middle class people who pay their taxes are Democrats anyway.
posted by Talez at 11:12 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

But Roth 401k has the same limits as traditional 401k. And I bet they won't lower the contribution limit on Roth 401k. As notyou notes, this is all about pushing people into Roth so that they can collect taxes now (at contribution) rather than later (at withdrawal).

Ah, it's the "generate revenue this quarter and let the company go bankrupt next quarter" strategy of the corporate world, applied to the federal treasury.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:12 AM on October 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

I hope this makes Trump cranky. Let’s see the world’s biggest man-baby lash out at this:

Five former presidents are raising money for hurricane relief. Trump is playing golf.

All five living former U.S. presidents are set to participate in a fundraiser for hurricane relief efforts on Saturday, but they won’t be joined by the current job holder — President Donald Trump is marking the occasion at his golf course.

In a rare joint appearance, former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter will attend a benefit concert at Reed Arena at Texas A&M University, part of a larger effort to aid the millions of U.S. citizens suffering from hurricane damage.

“It’s important that those affected by these devastating storms know that even if the path to recovery feels like a road that goes on forever, we’re with them for the long haul,” said President George H.W. Bush.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:02 PM on October 21, 2017 [57 favorites]

The President of the United States of America publicly accused part of the nation's security apparatus of treason. This is part of the public record. This is will be part of the official government records of the United States.

How has this not triggered a huge crisis? Do his words mean anything?

Heard Masha Gessen raise an interesting point the other day. At 6:30 in this conversation with Richard Fidler:

That said, it's actually remarkable how many things they share, and of course one of the ways in which they're very similar is the way in which they lie. Which, it's not unique to Putin and Trump; I've talked to Italian journalists who have told me that yes, Berlusconi lies exactly the same way.

But it's lying that's not familiar to most people. Because most people, when they lie, actually want to convince you of something that's not true. The important part for them is to be believed. For Trump it's an exercise in power. Basically every time he lies about something that is blatantly not true - something that is immediately disprovable - he's asserting power. He's basically saying "I can say whatever I want, whenever I want to, and what are you going to do about it?"

And it's real question, right? What are we going to do about it, as journalists? We can't not report that the President said - most recently, yesterday he said that previous Presidents didn't call the families of fallen American soldiers: a blatant lie. Easily documentable. What do you do with that as a journalist? You have no choice but to repeat the claim. You can then counter the claim; you can call the claim a lie, but you still have no choice but to repeat the claim.

posted by flabdablet at 12:05 PM on October 21, 2017 [47 favorites]

Ah, it's the "generate revenue this quarter and let the company go bankrupt next quarter" strategy of the corporate world, applied to the federal treasury.

You mistyped "Run the government like a business!".
posted by ArgentCorvid at 12:07 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

I mean, maybe you have to repeat the claim, sure, but not in the headline. The headline can be "President of the United States lies again: lie number 863 since Trump took the oath of office." Then the whole first page of the story can recount the previous 862 lies and explain why they were egregious failures to uphold the dignity of the office and obvious betrayals of the people who voted for him and then the article can get into the details. "Sources close to the president confirm that the latest lie is in the same vein as previous lies but with a few subtle differences that bring new and bitterer shame to the president and the country, in that [see "motherfucking stankass lying POS," page 6B]."
posted by Don Pepino at 12:20 PM on October 21, 2017 [39 favorites]

Journalists may have to repeat the claim, but they can do a hell of a lot with phrasing, if they chose. Don't write: "President Trump stated today -blah- in an effort to -whatever-. We researched the claim and discovered several inaccuracies, including -etc.-

Start by changing the phrasing. "Turning to politics, the President lied to the public today in a statement on twitter regarding -stuff-. In one lie more in a long line of easily researched and refuted lies, the President inaccurately stated -things-, a statement at odds with -fact-, -fact-, and -fact-. This marks the 387th time this week that President Trump has lied to the public."

The story isn't what he said, because he's just lying and bullshitting. The story is that the president is lying, constantly. "He is lying" should be the begging and the end, you can mash what he lied about and how you know it's a lie in the middle somewhere.
posted by mrgoat at 12:22 PM on October 21, 2017 [61 favorites]

That National Review article linked above has a few insights, but they're lost in a sea of racism/classism. Lines like this are apparently meant with a straight face:

The white underclass may suffer from “acting white,” but what poor people in general suffer from is acting poor, i.e., repeating the mistakes and habits that left them (or their parents and grandparents, in many cases) in poverty or near-poverty to begin with.

Lest he be accused of hypocrisy, Kevin D WIlliamson extends this to his own parents. Sheesh.

The main point, that the right has (mysteriously!) flipped its entire attitude about decency itself, could easily have been made without that (or the racist nonsense I don't feel like quoting). But, hey, NR will NR.

(Still, he comes weirdly close to grasping the exact point liberals make about racism silently determining conservatives' attitudes on things like joblessness or lack of taste. I remember a bit on the Daily Show many years back, when Obama was catching flak from the usual suspects for inviting a "drug-glorifying" rapper, and they hit back with clips of Fox News anchors praising Mr Cocaine Blues, Johnny Cash. Meanwhile, the mysterious discrepancy between "Lazy poors should get a job" and "Immigrants are taking your job" is so easily unraveled by race.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:30 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

"Trending Stories" on my FB feed includes:
Frederica Wilson
Trump jabs back at 'wacky' congresswoman as spat rolls on --msn.com

I just...he had to be shamed into calling the pregnant widow of a fallen soldier. Then he completely fucked it up. He was called out by a Congresswoman, who was backed up by others. He defended himself with a bunch of garbage roundly proven as lies, insulting other people along the way, and then sent out his chief of staff to spew even more insulting, demonstrable lies to the media.

But it's "jabs" in a "spat."

What the fuck.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:45 PM on October 21, 2017 [84 favorites]

The Tax Debate We Need: Progressive taxation curbs the power of the wealthy — and that's exactly why the Right hates it.
posted by homunculus at 12:52 PM on October 21, 2017 [15 favorites]

So I guess the super secret military plan he'd been boasting about last week has been shelved in favor of... viciously attacking a Gold Star family? And I thought the NFL shit was all about respecting fallen soldiers, too! What a ride!
posted by lydhre at 1:00 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

But it's lying that's not familiar to most people. Because most people, when they lie, actually want to convince you of something that's not true. The important part for them is to be believed. For Trump it's an exercise in power. Basically every time he lies about something that is blatantly not true - something that is immediately disprovable - he's asserting power. He's basically saying "I can say whatever I want, whenever I want to, and what are you going to do about it?"

And it's real question, right? What are we going to do about it, as journalists? We can't not report that the President said - most recently, yesterday he said that previous Presidents didn't call the families of fallen American soldiers: a blatant lie. Easily documentable. What do you do with that as a journalist? You have no choice but to repeat the claim. You can then counter the claim; you can call the claim a lie, but you still have no choice but to repeat the claim.

Donald Trump: literally a Frank Miller villain.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:29 PM on October 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

Back when John Kelly was proposed for Secretary of Homeland Security, the ACLU published this piece:

Facts
As the General in charge of the Guantanamo Bay Detention facility, Kelly publicly criticized efforts to close Guantanamo (Source) and was accused by Obama Administration officials of working to undermine the President’s efforts to close the facility. (Source)

Opposed and publicly criticized the integration of women into military ground combat units, arguing it would lead to lower standards. (Source)

Defended the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, such as waterboarding and rectal feeding. Kelly went on to dismiss the criticisms of human rights groups as “foolishness”. (Source)

Testified in support of an officer caught urinating on talibani corpses. (Source)

Supports the imprisonment of terror suspects without trial. (Source)

Criticised by Amnesty International for his “unsafe and inhumane” treatment (Source) of Guantanamo detainees on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment. (Source)

Supports the war on drugs and opposes legalization or decriminalization of any drugs, including marijuana. (Source)

A proponent of border security, Kelly believes that “no wall will work by itself” and has warned about the “existential threat” that unchecked migration poses for the nation. (Source)

Sorry, on my iPad and can't link.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:30 PM on October 21, 2017 [55 favorites]

Axios Scoop: Trump pledges to personally pay some legal bills of WH staff and associates

President Trump has promised to spend at least $430,000 of his own money to defray legal costs incurred by campaign associates and White House staff due to the Russia investigations, a White House official tells Axios.

Raw Story has more, via a segment on MSNBC: Trump’s offer to pay White House aides’ legal bills stuns MSNBC panel: ‘Potentially an admission of guilt’

At this point I would hope that Marines aren't happy about Kelly's racist lies.

I know a few marines and follow them on social media and they are not ok with Kelly’s statements.

‘Pick up the phone and say I apologize’: Medal of Honor recipient rips Kelly and Trump over fallen soldier response (Bob Brigham, Raw Story)

[Joy] Reid asked the retired colonel, who also received two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts, whether John Kelly should apologize to Rep. Wilson.

“If it were I, I would,” Jacobs acknowledged. “I mean, I’d pick up the phone and say, ‘look, this has gone far enough, I apologize.’ But that should have been the case from the very beginning when whatever is emanating from the White House was inaccurate as well.”

Jacobs noted this would have been easy for Trump to have put behind him.

“I can say this about Donald Trump, he’s not real good at talking,” Jacobs pointed out. “If I were Trump, I would have picked up the phone and said, ‘look, that was my ham-handed way of being sympathetic, I’m not good at that and I apologize.’ And all this stuff would have been over.”

Another former combat veteran agreed. Senior Chief Petty Officer Malcolm Nance (U.S. Navy, Ret.) said an apology is necessary to maintain the integrity of the United States.

posted by Room 641-A at 2:01 PM on October 21, 2017 [47 favorites]

Axios Scoop: Trump pledges to personally pay some legal bills of WH staff and associates

Do you suppose any of them believe he will actually follow through on that? Are they so deeply enmeshed in the Trump Cult they think they're the special ones he really will protect, or are they all aware that he'll toss them under the bus the very instant it's convenient to do so?
posted by sotonohito at 2:06 PM on October 21, 2017 [21 favorites]

I would sincerely hope that anybody who has worked for Trump this year has come to understand that him promising to pay for something bears no particular relationship to him actually making said payment.
posted by zachlipton at 2:07 PM on October 21, 2017 [35 favorites]

Trump isn't paying his own bills, the RNC is. IF staffers bills are paid, it'll be coming from one campaign account or the other, not Trump's pocket.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:08 PM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

that's part of Trump's character: he doesn't back down, doesn't say 'I was wrong.' I can't see how somebody can live comfortably that way; I feel like it wasn't until I got into my forties that I learned the grace that comes with being able to say, 'I really screwed up' and realize that admission is a huge part of the battle.

I don't know if that's narcissism or what, Trump's not being able in any way to admit he fucked up, and God help us for making him president, but what a fucking miserable way to live.
posted by angrycat at 2:18 PM on October 21, 2017 [17 favorites]

The NFL shit was never about respecting the troops, it was about stopping black men from speaking. This is not about respecting the troops, it is about stopping black women from speaking. Accepting the racists' framing grants them victory, and it says something disturbing about how entrenched racism is in US society that even many progressives let this slide.

Yes, this exactly.

The common thread isn't that Trump "respects the troops", it's that he wants black and brown people to shut up.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:18 PM on October 21, 2017 [38 favorites]

"But it's lying that's not familiar to most people. Because most people, when they lie, actually want to convince you of something that's not true. The important part for them is to be believed."

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.

For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

-- Frankfurt, H.G., On Bullshit
posted by Pinback at 2:19 PM on October 21, 2017 [40 favorites]

As for the insult tweets, instead of treating them as if they were news, the story could simply be a bald contradiction that doesn't mention either the tweet or the tweeter until a footnote at the end.

All he wants in this world is to read headlines that say "Trump said 'wacky!'" So because he wants that, deny him that.

Instead, invert Trump's "wacky" tweet to make the headline: "Schwarzenegger [or Dubya or Dog the Bounty Hunter--anybody Trump will recognize who'd be willing to sign a name to the quote] warns Republican party: Celebrated Congresswoman Wilson a shining example of excellence; attacks on her strengthen the Democrats" and then write a whole bio piece citing sources calling her "gifted" and "a phenom" and listing her accomplishments. No mention of Trump until the end, and no quote: "Trump tweeted otherwise Tuesday but the scanty evidence he provided for his claims proved to be false."

Then when he tweets that Dog the Bounty Hunter is a loser, another story. "'Dog the Bounty Hunter was the best reality television show in the history of television,' says America's sweeheart Honey Boo Boo Chile, who recently lost 12 pounds on the asparagus diet. 'Other shows are just plain flaccid is all I can say about them. I pity any show that has to try to hold on to viewers without Dog the Bounty Hunter running things, I really do, and Mama Joon says so too.'" Then he tweets something rude about Mama Joon and you get Regis Philbin to say Mama Joon is a backwoods scholar and he's trying to get her to run for congress. And let it spiral on and on and ever downward until at last Trump tweets himself into an apoplexy and they put him in a direct care facility where he can get the help he so evidently needs.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:31 PM on October 21, 2017 [29 favorites]

Vincente Fox is tweeting at Trump that Trump licks his own balls, which inordinately amuses me.
posted by angrycat at 2:31 PM on October 21, 2017 [35 favorites]

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.

Isn't that the difference between the Bush administration and the Trump administration? G.W. Bush and his people lied, while knowing the truth, and they deceived the American people and a lot of other people who trusted they were honest. Team Trump are just lying, without caring the slightest bit what the truth might be, and their cult agree and applaud this, enjoying the shock and terror everyone else feels. Unpredictability, instability and disruption are the very point of this, so you can't argue with your racist uncle or Republican politicians by pointing out that Trump is causing a fundamental dismantling of the US. That is why he they support him.
And it is not just those old white guys. These days I'm thinking a lot about two of my much younger friends who both harbor extreme libertarian/social darwinist views. I wonder where they got that from? Ayn Rand, yes. But it seems to be there needs to me more going on just in order to get yourself through the extremely boring task of reading through just one of her books. (I did it because I realized my students were influenced by them).
posted by mumimor at 2:38 PM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

New Yorker, David Remnick, The Tragic Legacy of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. In which western media celebrates, while most of the ISIS fighters fled before the final battle, leaving the civilians who suffered enough under ISIS with a destroyed city.

“You have to realize this: I am not happy. How could I be? It is true that ISIS is defeated now in Raqqa. But ninety per cent of the city is destroyed, there is rubble everywhere. Thousands have been killed. Hundreds of thousands are living in miserable conditions. People are sleeping outdoors in the desert heat. They are lucky if they have a tent.

“When I tell people that the media are celebrating the ‘liberation of Raqqa,’ they are upset. Some of them say, ‘Fuck the media. Fuck ISIS. And fuck everyone else.’ You have to understand, there is no one from Raqqa who didn’t lose a family member, a friend, a neighbor, a beloved person. I lost my uncle. Everywhere I’ve ever lived there is gone.

@nwarikoo: Erik Prince on his plan for Afghanistan: "It is kind of like what the East India Company would have done—and it worked for 250 years."

HuffPo, Ashley Feinberg (yeah, Wired didn't last long apparently), Harvard Students Told Us What They’re Learning From Sean Spicer: "Veritas? Nah."

An alternative fact is 3+1=4 or 4+0=4. Those are alternative facts. A lie is 3+2=4. Alternative facts are legitimate tools to use in politics.

I regret a lot of things. I regret things every day of my life, and I apologize.

My proudest moment as press secretary was getting the opportunity to give people tours of the White House.

White House press briefings are a waste of time.

Reporters had the chance to go and knock on my door and see me any time, but they would only ask questions during the White House press briefing so they could be on camera. They could have asked me at any other time of the day. [HuffPost White House reporter S.V. Date reports that “the door was almost always closed. You needed his gatekeeper’s permission to get in. I never got permission.”]

I’ve been at Harvard three days and no one has said anything negative publicly to my face.

NYT, Eric Lipton, Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots: "A scientist who worked for the chemical industry now shapes policy on hazardous chemicals. Within the E.P.A., there is fear that public health is at risk. (At right, a signing ceremony for new rules on toxic chemicals.)" The EPA's response when repeatedly asked for comment:

“No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in an email. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.”

Before joining the E.P.A., Ms. Bowman was a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council.

WaPo, Moriah Balingit, DeVos rescinds 72 guidance documents outlining rights for disabled students. It would make sense to perhaps update and combine old guidance documents, and the underlying regulations are still there, and the article is sorely lacking in details, but it doesn't sound like there was any particular process here other than throwing away lots of guidance that was used to protect the rights of students with disabilities.

Toronto Star, Daniel Dale, Thousands of Canadian professionals live in the U.S. under NAFTA-created status. So what happens if Donald Trump terminates the treaty? Thousands of Canadian professionals work in the US under NAFTA, and Trump could completely upend their lives.

Oh, and it's been 21 days since Congress failed to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Remember yesterday's theme? Today is making a strong case for a repetition. Fucking assholes.
posted by zachlipton at 3:10 PM on October 21, 2017 [43 favorites]

Trump pledges to personally pay some legal bills of WH staff and associates

@AoDespair (David Simon, The Wire)
Honest to god, this is what every drug kingpin does when his organization is tottering. Pay all the defense lawyers so no one rolls.
posted by chris24 at 3:13 PM on October 21, 2017 [103 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Great book just out, "A Place Called Heaven," by Dr. Robert Jeffress - A wonderful man!

@brianklaas: Jeffress has called Catholicism “cult-like”; Islam “evil”; said Obama was paving the way for the Antichrist & said gay people are “filthy.”

Remember how much time the Trump campaign spent on the idea that Clinton and her campaign were anti-Catholic? Now the President of the United States is endorsing a guy who says the succuess of Catholicism is due to "the genius of Satan."
posted by zachlipton at 3:27 PM on October 21, 2017 [17 favorites]

The Atlantic, Donald Trump Is Rush-Shipping Condolences to Military Families: "Three families of fallen servicemembers received next-day UPS letters from President Trump after a turbulent week in which Trump falsely claimed he had called “virtually all” of the families."

This includes several families of the sailors killed in the USS John McCain collision. That happened on August 21; they got their letters overnighted two months later on October 20. Per yesterday's Roll Call report, White House officials figured out on the 17th that Trump's claim that everyone got a letter was false.
posted by zachlipton at 3:32 PM on October 21, 2017 [46 favorites]

DNC imposes new restrictions on corporate donations

The Democratic National Committee on Saturday unanimously approved a resolution banning donations from corporate contributors whose work conflicts with the party platform.

I'm glad that this particular thing has become uncontroversial.
posted by xyzzy at 3:33 PM on October 21, 2017 [47 favorites]

Keep Your Money, Trump
It’s highly inappropriate for the president to write a check to the father of a slain service member. (Alison Buckholtz, Slate)

This. So much this.
posted by Weeping_angel at 3:42 PM on October 21, 2017 [28 favorites]

Oh, good, it's not just me. I was deeply discomfited by Trump offering to cut a check to the gold star family. So I'm glad somebody else took the "don't give money to parents of dead soldiers" hit for me.
posted by Justinian at 3:47 PM on October 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

Note I'm talking specifically about the President offering a personal check and not something like survivor's benefits paid by the appropriate agency to all eligible parties.
posted by Justinian at 3:48 PM on October 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

DeVos rescinds 72 guidance documents outlining rights for disabled students

GAHHHHHHHH. Are you fucking kidding me? (Ron Howard voice: "She wasn't kidding.") Do Republicans and evangelicals not have disabled children? Has this monster never heard Matthew 18:10 or the parable of the sheep and the goats in whatever bullshit megachurch whose door she darkens? She's the worst, the absolute fucking worst.
posted by donatella at 3:58 PM on October 21, 2017 [37 favorites]

Anyoney with more knowledge of this tell me why the mom received the death benefit and not the dad? I'm having a hard time not reading misogyny into his complaint that his ex-wife is a getting it.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:59 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Very much agree, Justinian. If the president makes sure that proper survivor's benefits are paid out, that's good. If the president pushes for more generous benefits, also good. If the president personally stepped in in a situation where benefits that should have been paid out weren't for some reason, also very good, like when your local congressperson gets something worked out for a constituent.

But cutting a personal check is fucking ghoulish. It reads like a handout from a benefactor, and represents the idea that we are at the mercy of the president's benevolence, instead of being his employers. It's the difference between a ruling aristocracy doling out money to the plebs (and don't you forget your place!), and a representative government of public service.
posted by mrgoat at 4:00 PM on October 21, 2017 [33 favorites]

Anyoney with more knowledge of this tell me why the mom received the death benefit and not the dad? I'm having a hard time not reading misogyny into his complaint that his ex-wife is a getting it.

As I understand it, it's like a civilian life insurance policy. The service member fills out a form (apparently, normally an online system, but this is the paper version) detailing the beneficiaries they want for their policy and how the money should be split. Those instructions get followed upon death. It's none of our business why this particular soldier listed his mom and not his dad, but that appears to have been his wishes.
posted by zachlipton at 4:08 PM on October 21, 2017 [30 favorites]

How weird is it that he only offered this one family a cash gift?
posted by Room 641-A at 4:11 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

How weird is it that he only offered this one family a cash gift?

Maybe not that weird.

@gettinnoticedmo
Let me get this straight:

Brown Gold Star Fam (Attacked by Trump)
Black Gold Star Fam (Attacked by Trump)
White Gold Star Fam (Gets 25k)
posted by chris24 at 4:22 PM on October 21, 2017 [75 favorites]

How weird is it that he only offered this one family a cash gift?

Only Mefites who personally know a Gold Star family who got a check from the President can have an opinion on this
posted by thelonius at 4:23 PM on October 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

It's not weird now after zachlipton's explanation. Even though it was the son's wishes, the father complained about the mother getting the money. Trump only heard 'ex-wives, amirite?'
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:24 PM on October 21, 2017 [37 favorites]

She's the worst, the absolute fucking worst.

Maybe. You know who her brother is, right?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:37 PM on October 21, 2017 [15 favorites]

Slate Feud: Elena and Neil
Why rumors of a Gorsuch–Kagan clash at the Supreme Court are such a bombshell.

Kagan is cool-headed and pragmatic, but she does not suffer fools gladly. She does enjoy sparring with Justice Samuel Alito, but Alito is a brilliant intellect with a misanthropic wit. Gorsuch, by comparison, is a Fox News anchor’s idea of a first-rate justice: an insipid ideologue peddling warmed-over dogmas. Kagan just might find him exasperating enough to merit a rebuttal, drawing her into the ongoing “battle” that Totenberg described.

It's a bombshell because

it’s astonishing that any reporter would hear details from conference, let alone score some genuinely juicy scuttlebutt. Conference is famously sacrosanct: It’s where the justices gather to cast their votes in the cases of the week, with each explaining his or her reasoning in order of seniority. Nobody else is allowed to attend. If rumors leak about a justice’s behavior in conference—and they basically never do—it is almost certainly a justice who leaked them. And when justices leak—which again, happens very rarely—they do so on purpose.

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:46 PM on October 21, 2017 [66 favorites]

Gorsuch is a sanctimonious know it all prick, shocker. The best we can hope for is he's so toxic and dislikeable personally that over time he pushes even Roberts away from the ultra-radical right block of Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch. For all Scalia was a intellectual fraud and dishonest bully with nonetheless an inexplicably undeserved and unearned reputation for genius, he apparently was a genuinely entertaining and engaging colleague and mentor. I don't doubt there were many times over the years that Scalia was able to persuade Kennedy, or Roberts, or Souter, or O'Conner, of his position in part through personal relationships and interpersonal skills as much or more than legal argument. If Gorsuch can't do that and in fact talking to him for 2 minutes makes even his republican allied justices want to punch him in his fucking smarmy smirking dickface, then good.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:58 PM on October 21, 2017 [63 favorites]

I laughed at the description, "a Fox News anchor’s idea of a first-rate justice."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:02 PM on October 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

I laughed at the description, "a Fox News anchor’s idea of a first-rate justice."

That's really Scalia too though, they loved him for his "liberals will hate this" zingers and the way that "originalism" somehow magically equated to the Fox News/Republican desired outcome 100% of the time, not for the consistency or cogency of his legal "theories". Because there never was any, throughout his entire career on the bench. Originalism has always and forever been pseudointellectual bullshit cooked up to justify Republican outcomes from Republican Justices and prop up what remained of the Court's legitimacy. Gorsuch is the same, only even more of an irredeemable jackass in his personal life as well as his professional one.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:06 PM on October 21, 2017 [27 favorites]

FWIW, I have been on a council similar in political recruiting and drama, but obvs not as prestigious as the US supreme court. There was hazing and fixed seats, shit jobs for junior members and a tough jargon. And even when people came in with a very solid politcal backing, if they didn't comply with the "rules", they would get nothing, ever. I think it is a way for the judicial branch of protecting itself against political overreach. Lets hope its the same for the US supreme court.

(The opposite was true as well: I was definitely a political appointee, but succeeded in all of my goals by playing with the team).
posted by mumimor at 5:08 PM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

his fucking smarmy smirking dickface

Which is coincidentally the new required form of address: "Yes, your fucking smarmy smirking dickface."
posted by ctmf at 5:10 PM on October 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

Mostly, I'm not a fan of the nicknames, but this, and Buntix' comment made me realize that there is a more than zero chance he'll have a military uniform designed for himself

It's just one huge gold epaulet
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:21 PM on October 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

I'm not sure if I'm more horrified that said epaulet would, or would not, cover a shoulder.
posted by mrgoat at 5:28 PM on October 21, 2017

ctmf, such awful manners - surely you know that the proper form of address is "the right honorable and smarmy smirking dickface of fuck"
posted by pyramid termite at 5:30 PM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

TOriginalism has always and forever been pseudointellectual bullshit cooked up to justify Republican outcomes from Republican Justices and prop up what remained of the Court's legitimacy

Cannot favorite this enough.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:34 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Had a chance to read the 401K story OMG'd above. It has to be some sort of crazypants trial balloon, because every politician knows 1) do not fuck with the roads and 2) do not fuck with upper middle class retirement.
posted by klarck at 5:35 PM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

> It's just one huge gold epaulet

You know it's going to be an ornate gold-plated codpiece.
posted by klarck at 5:37 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Does the codpiece have like, holes for his limbs and his head
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:47 PM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

It's not weird now after zachlipton's explanation. Even though it was the son's wishes, the father complained about the mother getting the money. Trump only heard 'ex-wives, amirite?'

No, not that. Didn't he offer a personal check to one single family, which we only found out about after the family came forward to say they hadn't received the check after four months and then coincidentally the check was sent out the same day.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:06 PM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Trump thinks a codpiece is one of his mythical Fish Delights from McDs.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 6:16 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

how small do they make them?
posted by pyramid termite at 6:28 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Fish Delights

He must have been thinking of Big Kahuna Burger
posted by thelonius at 6:37 PM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Okay, I obviously missed a chunk of the check story! I'm going to go "check" it out now.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:36 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

a Fox News anchor’s idea of a first-rate justice

A first-rate second-rate man.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:07 PM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Some post-golf tweets:

@realDonaldTrump: Officials behind the now discredited "Dossier" plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.
12:59 PM - Oct 21, 2017

Officials behind the now discredited "Dossier" plead the Fifth.

This is a lie. They refused to speak to the Senate after David Nunes set up that bullshit trip to London and served them with bullshit subpoenas. They are working with Mueller.

Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.

Wait. What??

@realDonaldTrump: Keep hearing about "tiny" amount of money spent on Facebook ads. What about the billions of dollars of Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC & CBS?
1:06 PM - Oct 21, 2017

Oh ffs will someone please explain to him how "quotation marks" work.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:28 PM on October 21, 2017 [17 favorites]

you don't think he goes there just to play GOLF, do you?

Hookers should be the least of our concerns about visits with Trump when he's securely settled away at his private properties, far from any kind of D.C. oversight. Why do you think he's refusing a court order to release his visitor logs at Mar-a-Lago, for example?
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:13 AM on October 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

boy I can't wait to see what kind of graft and chicanery the next Democratic president will be able to get away with now that it's okay

*retches*
posted by Soliloquy at 1:46 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

As if things weren't weird enough: LARPing as training ground for fascists/racists.
posted by loquacious at 3:18 AM on October 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

:_(
Harry Belafonte tells crowd at likely last public appearance: 'We shall overcome'

Singer and civil rights activist, 90, holds Pittsburgh audience spellbound with tales of his life and denunciation of Trump as a national ‘mistake’

posted by Joe in Australia at 3:42 AM on October 22, 2017 [53 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Keep hearing about "tiny" amount of money spent on Facebook ads. What about the billions of dollars of Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC & CBS?

Literally saying Russian interference in our election is no big deal, but boy, that First Amendment is a real problem.
posted by chris24 at 4:49 AM on October 22, 2017 [63 favorites]

I don't have kids, so Halloween sort of flies underneath my radar, but I was at a protest in Philly last week where this guy had a Trump mask on and was wearing an inmate's jumpsuit. I was like oh jolly good and then I realized that OH NO Trump masks were going to be on sale for Halloween.

I'm a little worried that my downstairs neighbor, who drinks a lot and has cornered us to rant about Trump more than once, is going to see a little one in a Trump mask and lose his shit.
posted by angrycat at 5:10 AM on October 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

It gets better. Nunes, "recused" Republican head of the House's "investigation" into Trump's Russian mob underpinnings, unilaterally subpoenaed Fusion GPS' bank to find out who paid for the Trump dossier.

He’s such a doofus. It was Jeb. Everyone knows that it was initially Jeb.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:20 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

"Trump" has an op ed about tax reform in USA Today. I use the quote marks around Trump because of course he didn't write it. The real Trump is busy tweeting out his primal screams against Congresswoman Wilson, the press, & the Democrats.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:39 AM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's absolutely normal for op-eds by prominent people to be ghost written, though.

I wouldn't waste a microgramme of precious outrage on that issue. Although it would be amusing to see what 45's actual attempt at a 500 word essay would look like.
posted by Devonian at 5:55 AM on October 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Trump" has an op ed about tax reform in USA Today.

@KevinMKruse (author/Princeton history prof)
Whoever wrote this op-ed for the president really captured his lack of historical knowledge and basic logic.
- Yes, there was a big tax cut in 1981. And over the next year the economy tanked and unemployment shot up to 10%.
- So in 1982, Congress undid much of the 1981 tax cut. And raised them again throughout the decade.
- But back up -- Reagan had pitched the 1981 tax cut as a unique answer to the stagflation crisis of the late 1970s.
- Why do we supposedly need the same approach now? Is the economy stagnant without tax relief? Here's what this oped notes:

And now, unemployment is at a 16-year low. Wages are rising. Manufacturing confidence is higher than it has ever been. The stock market is soaring to record levels. And GDP growth climbed to more than 3% in the second quarter.

- So things are great, the economy is still growing under changes Obama made, so ... let's scrap all that to be great ... again?
posted by chris24 at 6:01 AM on October 22, 2017 [77 favorites]

OH NO Trump masks were going to be on sale for Halloween

On the one hand, my visceral contempt and revulsion for anything Trump-related and how dare his visage ruin my favorite holiday, etc.

On the other hand, my begrudging realization that it's hard to imagine anything more actually horrifying. Alongside the monsters, ghouls, vampires and zombies is exactly where Trump's face belongs.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 6:13 AM on October 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

From the op-ed: Our tax code and laws have nearly tripled in length since the 1986 reforms. They now span 2,650 pages, with another 70,000 pages of forms, instructions, court decisions, and other guidance.

So his plan will not be subject to judicial review, will not have any formal guidance, and will not require any forms? It will fully supplant the existing IRC, will have no transition period, and apply retroactively to all open years? And once it's passed there will be no need to ever add another provision for the rest of time?
posted by melissasaurus at 6:24 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

House GOP Fears Wave in 2018 as Money Woes Grow

House Republicans are growing increasingly alarmed that some of their most vulnerable members aren’t doing the necessary legwork to protect themselves from an emerging Democratic tidal wave. In some of the biggest media markets, where blockbuster fundraising is a prerequisite for political survival—most notably in New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston—Republican lawmakers aren’t raising enough money to run aggressive campaigns against up-and-coming Democrats.

Of the 53 House Republicans facing competitive races, according to Cook Political Report ratings, a whopping 21 have been outraised by at least one Democratic opponent in the just-completed fundraising quarter. That’s a stunningly high number this early in the cycle, one that illustrates just how favorable the political environment is for House Democrats.

The third-quarter fundraising reports paint a gloomy picture for many Republicans. Rep. Steve Knight of California raised only $144,000 in the last three months, less than the total of two lesser-known Democratic challengers. Veteran Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey brought in only $154,000—just over one-third the amount of his leading Democratic rival, retired Navy helicopter pilot Mikie Sherrill. In the Houston area, Rep. John Culberson, who typically doesn’t face competitive races, raised only $172,000 in a Democratic-trending district that backed Hillary Clinton last year.

The list goes on: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, under scrutiny over his unseemly ties to Russia, was outraised by a highly touted challenger and has only $600,000 in the bank. Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York saw her leading opponent raise twice as much money she did; even her Republican predecessor, former Rep. Richard Hanna, donated to the Democratic challenger. Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey brought in less than $200,000 in the quarter and has less than a half-million in cash on hand in a district where advertising is prohibitively expensive. [...]

Money doesn’t always translate to victory, but the sheer number of House Republicans struggling to adequately prepare for difficult reelection campaigns—combined with the historic amount brought in by little-known Democratic candidates—points to an ominous political environment ahead for Republicans. Just as Republican voters are disillusioned with the lack of legislative accomplishments despite holding majorities in both chambers of Congress, some GOP donors are withholding their checks to protest the inactivity as well.

In addition, weak fundraising totals in the year before an election often suggest that members are thinking about heading for the exits. One senior Republican House strategist warned that if Congress can’t pass tax reform into law, a wave of retirements will soon follow.

posted by chris24 at 6:26 AM on October 22, 2017 [31 favorites]

Melissasaurus. I don't believe for a minute that all the special interest tax loopholes that were planned, written, and fought for by each special interest group are going to be erased by congress. You think those industries are going to let that happen? Yeah, no.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:41 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Trump" has an op ed about tax reform in USA Today.

It's another piece of nostalgia for a past that didn't happen.
posted by mumimor at 6:55 AM on October 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

Melissasaurus. I don't believe for a minute that all the special interest tax loopholes that were planned, written, and fought for by each special interest group are going to be erased by congress. You think those industries are going to let that happen? Yeah, no.

Just like the healthcare nonsense. They don't know how to govern, or to negotiate with interest groups, so they just throw together a hodgepodge of crap sack "ideas" from their used to be think tanks and then try to ram it through quickly before anybody has a chance to take a good look at it.

Remember, healthcare came first because it was supposed to be the easy part. This folks can't stand up to their clearly unstable President, what are the odds they'll show anything resembling backbone when it comes to interest groups with competent lobbying operations who donate to their campaigns?
posted by leotrotsky at 7:12 AM on October 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Behind efforts to build prototypes of Trump's border wall, emails show a confusing and haphazard process (Jill Castellano and Rafael Carranza, USA Today)

Crews, which were given 30 days to do the work, now have about a week left to finish building eight border wall prototypes. As of Friday, workers had completed six.

Despite logistical challenges – given six crews hurriedly working in close quarters – U.S. Customs and Border Protection said construction has gone off without a hitch.

But behind that scene was the unusually confusing and haphazard process that hundreds of bidders faced as they tried to submit proposals in March and April to build these prototypes.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the USA TODAY Network obtained nearly 200 pages of emails sent to and from a CBP email address that was set up in March for companies to ask questions about the bidding process. They chronicle continuous confusion over the most basic details of the process – deadlines, page counts, how to submit bids, where to submit bids and so on.

Government officials wanted all proposals submitted in 12 days. During that time, they added seven amendments to their original requests for proposals – which were already more than 130 pages – containing hundreds of answers to questions. Then, with hours before the deadline, they decided to give companies another week to submit bids but still limited all proposals to 10 pages. Each winner would be awarded up to $300 million over the next five years. [...]

As a part of standard procedure, CBP set up an email address and gave businesses five days to send in any questions they had about the solicitations. In that time, CBP received at least 48 emails containing 196 questions, many asking for basic information that, typically, is easily accessible on a government solicitation.

"Why were there two separate RFPs issued?"

"2nd request as no reply received. Pls advise where we can review the reply."

"Is the submittal allowed in a PDF?"

"None of our 12 questions we submitted were answered."

posted by Room 641-A at 7:28 AM on October 22, 2017 [24 favorites]

On the one hand, my visceral contempt and revulsion for anything Trump-related and how dare his visage ruin my favorite holiday, etc.

On the other hand, my begrudging realization that it's hard to imagine anything more actually horrifying. Alongside the monsters, ghouls, vampires and zombies is exactly where Trump's face belongs.

My local costume shoppe has two different kinds of rubber Trump mask: The "normal" one, which is already terrifying on its own, and the "deluxe" one, which is repainted to resemble the Dark Knight version of the Joker.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:46 AM on October 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

which is repainted to resemble the Dark Knight version of the Joker.

Joker had a plan, and executed on it. Trump's more like greedy henchman #3, who just shot greedy henchman #2 and doesn't realize he's about to get shot by greedy henchman #4.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:05 AM on October 22, 2017 [15 favorites]

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, under scrutiny over his unseemly ties to Russia, was outraised by a highly touted challenger and has only $600,000 in the bank.

But how much does he also have in bitcoin and other cryptos, definitely not provided to him by nazis and Putin?

Far-right blogger Chuck C. Johnson gave bitcoin donation to Dana Rohrabacher

Right-wing blogger and provocateur [that's a neat euphemism for "holocaust-denier and attempted murder conspirator"] Chuck C. Johnson gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) a $5,400 campaign contribution weeks after he said he helped arrange a meeting between the Orange County congressman and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:05 AM on October 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

ICE enters Portland home without a warrant. They are in plainclothes and fail to adequately identify themselves. They claim that they do not need a warrant because the home has ongoing construction/contracting work, it is now a "place of business." They kidnap and later release a man without charges.

Video

ICE is a criminal organization.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:30 AM on October 22, 2017 [82 favorites]

$600K in the bank is really slummin'.
posted by maxwelton at 8:40 AM on October 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

ICE enters Portland home without a warrant. They are in plainclothes and fail to adequately identify themselves. They claim that they do not need a warrant because the home has ongoing construction/contracting work, it is now a "place of business." They kidnap and later release a man without charges.

Now isn't this exactly the sort of scenario that Second-Amendment People™ use to justify their right to bear arms - the ability to defend against tyranny? Just seems like a matter of time before these raids start to result in bloodshed.
posted by hangashore at 8:46 AM on October 22, 2017 [24 favorites]

"Each winner would be awarded up to $300 million over the next 5 years"

Each winner?! How many walls are they planning to build and what is their total budget?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:51 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just seems like a matter of time before these raids start to result in bloodshed.

The NRA/2nd Amendment Types don't really speak up (much) when the people asserting their right to bear arms are anything but lily white in complexion.
posted by xyzzy at 9:08 AM on October 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

Each winner?! How many walls are they planning to build and what is their total budget?

Actually, that 300 million amount per bid seems weirdly low to me. Not that I know how much a chunk of wall should cost, but I know it costs multiple millions of dollars to make a single mile of highway. Are they planning on throwing hundreds of miles of chain link fence up along the 2000 mile border, or what?
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:13 AM on October 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'll admit I've been a bit out of the loop this week, but I am in awe of this article and it's "flowchart of mistakes." To think that we are at a point where any article on this President should include a handy summary of his lying because he does it so much that it's impossible to keep track of.
posted by Catblack at 9:17 AM on October 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

The Columbia Journalism Review issue mentioned earlier is a pretty good read. I want to call out something from this piece: "What if the right-wing media wins?", McKay Coppins

IT DOESN’T REQUIRE AN OVERLY ACTIVE IMAGINATION to picture the post-apocalyptic news landscape that so many conservatives seem to be working toward. Media fragmentation accelerates to warp speed. Agenda-driven publishers—be they professionally staffed websites or one-man YouTube channels—churn out narrowly tailored news for increasingly niche audiences. There’s still plenty of factual reporting to turn to ... But it’s easier than ever for news consumers to ensconce themselves in hermetically sealed information bubbles and ignore revelations that challenge their worldviews. For most people, “news” ceases to function as a means of enlightenment, and becomes fodder for vitriolic political debates that play out endlessly on social media. (Like I said, it’s not hard to imagine.) Inevitably, the rich and powerful—those who can afford to buy and bankroll their own personal Pravdas—benefit most in this brave new world.

I'm .... pretty sure that fragmentation is not the actual problem. Because from one perspective that's talking about the Fox News bubble, but it's also echoing the criticism of so-called SJWs and "safe spaces". It's just as easily talking about people who refuse to listen to Fox News - who are, in fact, refusing to listen because it challenges their worldview.

(I mean, I'm speaking for myself there. I don't listen to Fox and that cohort because I don't think of them as a credible news source; but it's not like I'm actually evaluating the truthfulness of their reporting for myself. I'm not fact-checking them. I'm making gut judgments based on the judgment of other people I respect. That's pretty bubbley. And with more nazi-ish media I'm just immediately repulsed, because it is repulsive to my worldview.)

Media fragmentation might be a problem, but it's not The Problem. The Problem is that a lot of those segments are overwhelmed with bullshit. Fragmentation is not the overriding purpose of the right-wing media - I know that because when I refuse to listen to them, that doesn't help them in any way. When I refuse to listen to Fox and their cohort, I am contributing to fragmentation and segmentation - but I'm not helping their cause.

The purpose of right-wing media is to take their bullshit and stuff it into a fact-shaped sausage casing so it can be sold to the public. That is it. Anything else is severely mis-understanding their goal.

Saying that the real problem is media fragmentation ... saying that we have to listen to things that "challenge our worldview" ... feels like they're saying that we all have to listen to all journalists; that all journalists have a right to be heard. And saying that I have to listen to you has started sounding really narcissistic to me. It's narcissistic when Milo whines about being banned from Twitter. It's narcissistic when Dick Spencer makes noises about free speech and being oppressed. It's narcissistic when college professors whine about safe spaces. And it's narcissistic when national reporters say "The REAL problem is that people aren't listening to us." That might be too uncharitable a reading, idunno. That's what I think tho.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:19 AM on October 22, 2017 [24 favorites]

Agreed. A fragmented media landscape would be fine in itself, if if all of the fragments actually valued truth and had high journalist standards. The problem is not how many media outlets there are. It's how many really crappy media outlets there are.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:48 AM on October 22, 2017 [15 favorites]

sio42: Is Mar-a-Lago currently under ongoing construction/contracting work? I mean, if that is all it takes to not need a warrant...

Surely Mar-a-Lago is already a place of business?
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:18 AM on October 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

Just seems like a matter of time before these raids start to result in bloodshed.

Google search: killed botched ice raid

I haven't clicked any of the links to verify, the summaries are bad enough...
posted by Buntix at 10:24 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

the now discredited "Dossier"

Wow, so it turns out to be true? That's the most likely reason for them to be putting out a story that it is "discredited", instead of ignoring it.

"Spoke of the name of the young man" is not a cromulent English sentence, to begin with.

"I spoke of the name of the young man" is perfectly grammatical. It just makes no sense in the context and is a very odd thing to say. What did he tell the widow -wow, that's a really interesting name he had?
posted by thelonius at 10:55 AM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

One does not merely say "I spoke of the name of the young man." That sentence must be intoned. It would make an excellent opening line for a short horror story.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:01 AM on October 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Trump plans to release last cache of secret JFK assassination files [Toronto Star]

So I guess there really weren't aliens at Roswell after all.
posted by porpoise at 11:04 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

In a letter justifying their actions during that incident, specifically the choice to wear street clothes, Elizabeth Godfrey, acting field office director of the ICE Seattle office, wrote, "At times, there is a need for ICE officers to blend in with the public while conducting operational activities, in order to protect their safety."

"In the Portland metro area in particular, ICE officers are facing increasingly hostile and aggressive sentiment and obstructionist tactics," Godfrey added. "These officers are simply carrying out their duty to uphold the laws that Congress has passed."

Bullshit. In a letter attempting to justify their actions during that incident, specifically the choice to wear street clothes, Elizabeth Godfrey, acting field office director of the ICE Seattle office, indicated to the public that ICE is planning on increasing their illegal activities until there is widespread bloodshed. ICE wants to push people until they get violent, so that they can justify responding with more violence.

Perhaps they would not face "increasingly hostile and aggressive sentiment" if they would, say, stop wearing plainclothes, stop refusing to identify themselves, stop breaking into people's houses illegally, and stop kidnapping people. If some rando came into my house off the street and tried to kidnap me, you can bet my sentiment would be, at minimum, "hostile, aggressive, and obstructionist".

Who knows what logic these folks use?

Starts with an "R", rhymes with "acism". They would have used anything as an excuse, the construction sign just happened to be there. With nothing, they'd still just go do it anyway.
posted by mrgoat at 11:05 AM on October 22, 2017 [33 favorites]

"Spoke of the name" is an evangelical cult-signifier phrase.

Interesting - is that your speculation, or is there any kind of resource about that?
posted by thelonius at 11:05 AM on October 22, 2017

Speaking as an "old", a lot of people welcomed media fragmentation because we had read "Manufacturing Consent" and it was clear that unfragmented media were, consciously or not, framing an elite narrative. Explicitly political media were welcomed as being transparent and therefore readily decodable, while at the same time expanding the frame of consensual reality. Ironically of course, people just fell into an ever-smaller frame of consensual reality and the basic Herman-Chomsky analysis just bit them even deeper in the ass.

A lot of people seem to be pining for a good old days when the media was a fair arbiter of world reality and, while I do believe in the dictum that a step backwards is a step in the right direction if you're on the edge of a cliff, there's something of a yearning for a golden age of newspapers or of media that never was.

Having said that, the very media of the messages do indeed shape our worldview. Back in the days of printed newspapers, you pretty much couldn't help but absorb ancillary information as you turned the material page and physically scanned for stuff you were interested in. You might not care about your hometown politics but you would see that the Mayor did something bad. You didn't care about sports, but you would see that the Cubs had lost again. You didn't care about Zimbabwe, but you'd see there had been more massacres. Yes, all within a media frame but there was a breadth of exposure in newspapers (and network news) that it seems has been lost as people have (in many cases, eagerly) RSS-ed their lives.
posted by Rumple at 11:14 AM on October 22, 2017 [44 favorites]

...if they would, say, stop wearing plainclothes, stop refusing to identify themselves, stop breaking into people's houses illegally, and stop kidnapping people.

"Right wing paramilitary" is increasingly the appropriate term.

It also appears that the E.P.A. is pretty much a zombie organisation.
posted by Buntix at 11:15 AM on October 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

“And by the way, I spoke of the name of the young man, and I — it was a really — it’s a very tough call. Those are the toughest calls,” Trump said. “These are tougher than dealing with the heads of countries, believe me. These are very, very hard calls. They’re sad and sometimes, you know, the grieving is so incredible.”

Masha Gessen again, same conversation, 8:47:

Richard Fidler: Tell me about how Trump, and Putin to some degree, are good at detaching words from their meaning.

Masha Gessen: Yeah, it's an extraordinary thing, because you know when I was growing up in the Soviet Union, or actually when I came back as a writer in the 90s, I had to contend with the fact that the Soviets had always used words to mean their opposite. Words like "democracy", "freedom", "prison", "constitution", "elections", you know... all of them literally meant their opposite. Like when people went to the polls in the Soviet Union, it was called "the free expression of citizen will", which is amazing because that's four words, each of which means its opposite, right? Because it wasn't free, there was no expression, they weren't citizens and there was no will.

RF: And people knew that wasn't true, but the point is you had to acquiesce. That's the thing you would do.

MG: Because there was no freedom, right. And you had to go to the polls, under penalty of law, and you had no choice once you got to the polls because there was only one candidate. But it was called "the free expression of citizen will". And that made it very difficult to actually be a writer or a journalist in post-Soviet Russia, because so many words had been abused in such a way that they weren't usable any more.

And then when Putin came along, he did something else: he started using words to mean nothing.

So there would be invented expressions, like "managed democracy". What the hell is managed democracy?

RF: I don't know, but clearly he's the manager, isn't he?

MG: Right. He's the manager; but then why are we calling it a democracy? And then suddenly everything becomes very mushy, and there's a kind of cacophony of meaningless words.

What I find interesting about Trump is that he actually does both of these things instinctively. He uses words to mean their opposite, like for example when he uses the phrase "witch hunt"; because there can't be a witch hunt against the most powerful man in the world.

RF: A witch hunt takes place against a powerless person, doesn't it.

MG: Exactly. It's the powerful against the powerless, not the other way round. But he also uses words to mean nothing and he just creates this sort of word salad, and journalists who transcribe, or who do interviews with him, don't know where the sentence begins or ends - it actually creates technical problems. And all of a sudden you have the same sensation of just being in this mushy sea of words that mean nothing.

posted by flabdablet at 11:25 AM on October 22, 2017 [49 favorites]

If you collect the mealy-mouthed, passively-voiced laments of "sane Republicans" then don't miss Peter Wehner's NYT column:

A year after President Trump’s stunning electoral victory, the Republican Party is in a very strange place. It’s politically dominant but increasingly unpopular, particularly among young people and nonwhites of all ages, whose level of unhappiness with Mr. Trump and his administration is toxic.

Yes Peter, it is the unhappiness that is toxic, not Trump and his administration.
posted by Rumple at 11:32 AM on October 22, 2017 [49 favorites]

It's just as easily talking about people who refuse to listen to Fox News - who are, in fact, refusing to listen because it challenges their worldview.

When I avoid Fucks News and the rest of the effluent from the Murdoch drivel machine, it's not because I find what they present to be a challenge to my worldview; it's because I am pretty confident, on the basis of fairly robust past sampling, that what they present is transparent fucking propaganda of the most blatant possible kind for a completely manufactured worldview that benefits nobody but Rupert and his ilk.

Fucks has its share of presenters who show many of the signs that they have swallowed this worldview whole, and appear to be making a show of presenting it in good faith regardless of how incoherent, self-contradictory, asinine and repellent any person still capable of actual critical thought would find it; other Murdoch hacks, like the egregious Andrew Bolt, clearly have their finger on the pulse of their audience's largely spurious grievance and will simply spew whatever nonsense is required to keep it at a steady rolling boil.

This is not a challenge to my worldview; I've never seen a Murdoch employee achieve anything even close to the quality of argument that could reasonably be construed as a challenge. Rather, it's the clearest example I can think of of corporate media doing as corporate media does - relentless selection and repetition of self-serving bullshit - and I avoid it for the same reason I try to avoid all the other forms of bought-and-paid-for advertising. It's simply not worth wading through that much bilious low-quality dreck on any given day.
posted by flabdablet at 11:44 AM on October 22, 2017 [53 favorites]

Whoever wrote this op-ed for the president really captured his lack of historical knowledge and basic logic.
That's an impressive accomplishment. Any theories on who wrote it?
posted by MtDewd at 12:21 PM on October 22, 2017

Stephen Miller, as usual.
posted by rhizome at 12:25 PM on October 22, 2017 [16 favorites]

Hillary Clinton interviewed on BBC's Graham Norton Show on 20 Oct 2017. (YT link)
posted by a person of few words at 12:35 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Putin is using Interpol to go after Bill Browder

Russia puts British Putin critic on Interpol wanted list
On Saturday it emerged that Russia had placed the US-born British citizen on Interpol’s list, exploiting a loophole that lets countries unilaterally place individuals on its database used to request an arrest. Browder said he was alerted to the move by an email from the US department of homeland security, stating his “global entry status” had been revoked. Further calls confirmed he had been added to Interpol’s list via an arrest demand, known as a “diffusion”.
posted by PenDevil at 12:37 PM on October 22, 2017 [16 favorites]

a loophole that lets countries unilaterally place individuals on its database used to request an arrest

So you can just do that. Lovely. Good to know. I'm learning so much about what governments can just get away with these days.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:40 PM on October 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

I found most of that CJR issue to be useless at best. There was no examination of the failures of the media, just failures in readership/viewership. I'd like to read more about headlines from WaPo that mention the Democratic gubernatorial candidate's investments in their state but not the Republican candidate's investments that are described in the very same article. I want to hear more about 600 consecutive days of reporting on Clinton email. I want to hear more about the unconscionable decision to show Trump's empty podium for 20 mins leading up to a rally but only bits from HRC's speeches where she mentions Trump. I want to hear more about how all of the news clips of Obama's and Bush's recent stump speeches have been ABOUT TRUMP. I want to hear what the fucking "liberal media elite" plan to FUCKING DO about the fact that they're being led around on a leash by a fascist demagogue.

So please, CJR, spare me your warnings about media bubbles, your articles about your fear of being silenced by a fascist, your breathless reporting about a new age of investigative journalism that may inspire a new generation of reporters, your historical accounting of the "difficulties" in covering Trump, your weak theories about the slippery slope of entertainment journalism.
posted by xyzzy at 12:42 PM on October 22, 2017 [37 favorites]

I'm not fact-checking them. I'm making gut judgments based on the judgment of other people I respect. That's pretty bubbley.

I feel you, but you shouldn't do that. You just need to watch occasionally and for a few minutes to see for yourself how laughably slanted they are.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:42 PM on October 22, 2017

On Saturday it emerged that Russia had placed the US-born British citizen on Interpol’s list, exploiting a loophole that lets countries unilaterally place individuals on its database used to request an arrest. Browder said he was alerted to the move by an email from the US department of homeland security, stating his “global entry status” had been revoked. Further calls confirmed he had been added to Interpol’s list via an arrest demand, known as a “diffusion”.

So you can just do that. Lovely. Good to know. I'm learning so much about what governments can just get away with these days.

Except he's been in a massive shitfight with Russia for over a decade. I mean, when you get convicted in abstentia for massive tax fraud then yeah, authorities tend to do that. Interpol refused Russia's request initially before the shitfight (way back in 2006) but the conviction changes the calculus.
posted by Talez at 1:04 PM on October 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

(Assuming it wasn't a joke) Trump has not spent anywhere near enough time in any sort of religious atmosphere to absorb any specialized turns of phrases. The man cannot even state the names of the chapters and verses in the Bible in a manner accepted by any religious people I'm aware of. He isn't signifying anything with that sentence. He is still avoiding saying the man's name out of racism, spite, or most likely, simply not being able to recall it because it never meant enough to him in the first place to infiltrate his increasingly scrambled brain.
posted by thebrokedown at 1:13 PM on October 22, 2017 [39 favorites]

Yeah, ain't no way he remembered the guy's name, not in the moment and certainly not now.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:22 PM on October 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

Margaret Sullivan, Conservative media was Scottie Nell Hughes’s world. Now it’s her enemy. In which one of Trump's most prominent defenders during the campaign was expecting a job, but now says she finds herself blackballed after accusing Fox Business's Charles Payne of rape:

Hughes told me that she’s found out the hard way that conservative women have a particularly hard time making sexual harassment and assault claims. Those claims often are scoffed at on the right, she said, and retaliation can be swift and brutal.

“Name me another conservative woman who has charged a male on the same side of the aisle with sexual misconduct outside of those involved with Fox,” she said.

The absence speaks volumes, she said: “Victims have been shamed into silence and it’s almost like open hunting season for sexual predators on the right.”

Almost every day, she said, she hears from women in conservative political and media circles. She gave examples of what they’ve told her: “My career would be over.” “I’m thinking I should speak up against certain people but it would ruin me.” “I internalized it for years. And hid behind work.”

Hughes told me that she is appalled at the way Fox News has given plenty of airtime to the sexual-harassment and sexual-assault charges against liberal Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, but virtually ignored its internal scandal that resulted in the falls from grace of network co-founder Roger Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly. (Fox gave only 11 minutes of airtime to Ailes in a five-week period last summer when it was huge news elsewhere, The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi reported.)

“The silence is deafening,” she said. “Over the last few weeks, I have watched in utter disbelief at the weak coverage and failure to address the elephant in the room.”

posted by zachlipton at 1:24 PM on October 22, 2017 [38 favorites]

I want to be sympathetic but also: why the fuck do these people keep expecting they'll be treated any different when they cross the line?
posted by Anonymous at 1:40 PM on October 22, 2017

I feel like a large chunk of conservatism is based in the delusion "I am a unique individual whose actions are justified and understandable, as opposed to Those People who are little better than immoral animals."
posted by Anonymous at 1:43 PM on October 22, 2017

"I didn't think they would eat my face", laments Leopard wannabe.
posted by Rumple at 1:43 PM on October 22, 2017 [27 favorites]

Hughes told me that she is appalled at the way Fox News has given plenty of airtime to the sexual-harassment and sexual-assault charges against liberal Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, but virtually ignored its internal scandal that resulted in the falls from grace of network co-founder Roger Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly.

You should have paid attention. That's been Fox's MO for as long as they've been around.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:05 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Lindsey Graham: Trump Admin Has ‘Blind Spot on Russia I Still Can’t Figure Out’

ಠ_ಠ
posted by Room 641-A at 2:08 PM on October 22, 2017 [52 favorites]

"The fox has a blind spot on the hen house, and I still can't figure it out."
posted by tonycpsu at 2:15 PM on October 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

In case anyone was worried they had to take Alan Dershowitz seriously because he’s an acclaimed law professor, he now says that Obama would have handled the NFL situation just the same way Trump has.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:16 PM on October 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Except he's been in a massive shitfight with Russia for over a decade. I mean, when you get convicted in abstentia for massive tax fraud then yeah, authorities tend to do that. Interpol refused Russia's request initially before the shitfight (way back in 2006) but the conviction changes the calculus.

Wasn't the conviction a way to go after Browder for the Magnitsky Act, though? I don't know how Interpol works but it's kind of scary that a conviction in Russia is enough justification for them.
posted by floomp at 2:17 PM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Obama on Colin K.:

“There are gonna be a lot of folks who do stuff we don’t agree with...but as long as they’re doing it within the law, then we can voice our opinion objecting to it, but it’s also their right."

“I want Mr. Kaepernick and others who are on a knee, I want them to to listen to the pain that that may cause somebody who, for example, had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat and why it hurts them to see somebody not standing. But I also want people to think about the pain he may be expressing about somebody who’s lost a loved one that they think was unfairly shot.”

So, you know, not the same, Dershowitz. At all.
posted by xyzzy at 2:35 PM on October 22, 2017 [50 favorites]

> I want them to to listen to the pain that that may cause somebody who, for example, had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat and why it hurts them to see somebody not standing.

He had months to come up with the right words for the situation and this is what he goes with? Ceding the point that what Kaepernick is doing is in any way connected to questioning the military? Weak sauce.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:50 PM on October 22, 2017 [31 favorites]

I don't know how Interpol works but it's kind of scary that a conviction in Russia is enough justification for them.

It's not all that different to the way politicians have weaponised electoral commissions or the cynical way Trump makes money from the Secret Service. Practically every civil institution is susceptible to attacks from the inside, and only way to prevent them is by appealing to a higher level. Well, now there are no higher levels: everything is compromised from the top down and I don't see what is to be done.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:54 PM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Tonycpsu, Obama said that while he was still President, shortly after Colin K. first took a knee, while at a town hall. Considering that Colin K. himself sought advice on this very issue, I'm not sure "weak sauce" is the precise descriptor for this response.
posted by xyzzy at 2:55 PM on October 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

> Tonycpsu, Obama said that while he was still President, shortly after Colin K. first took a knee, while at a town hall. Considering that Colin K. himself sought advice on this very issue, I'm not sure "weak sauce" is the precise descriptor for this response.

My bad, then -- you didn't supply a link, so I didn't notice it was his original comments, before Kaep changed his protest. Nevermind!
posted by tonycpsu at 2:58 PM on October 22, 2017

I didn't know much about Dershowitz (I still don't, I guess) until I came across One on One with Alan Dershowitz on a cable channel, in which he skypes into an Israeli TV studio, I think, and is asked questions by a host. I particularly took note when he claimed that intersectionality is a rhetorical contrivance made up for the purpose of criticizing Israel.
posted by XMLicious at 3:05 PM on October 22, 2017

For the first time in 26 years: US Preparing to Put Nuclear Bombers Back on 24-Hour Alert
posted by Buntix at 3:10 PM on October 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Here's a twitter thread from @NuclearAnthro with some thoughts on that and what it means. Note that this is a base preparing for the possibility that such a thing could happen in the future, not it actually happening.
posted by zachlipton at 3:17 PM on October 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

I want Mr. Kaepernick and others who are on a knee, I want them to to listen to the pain that that may cause somebody who, for example, had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat and why it hurts them to see somebody not standing.

That lt's not an altogether coherent response. I mean yes, what did Kaepernick's protest have to do with the military, specifically? I understood it was about BLM, which isn't primarily a foreign policy issue. By phrasing it this way Obama distracted attention from the genuine domestic issue and emboldened the people who saw it as an outsider attack on the USA. That's obvious now, with the Trump administration's weaponisation of military prestige against its enemies, but Obama is a smart guy and he should have seen it back then too.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:17 PM on October 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

what did Kaepernick's protest have to do with the military, specifically?

Nothing specifically, but after the US military had spent millions of dollars for "tributes" during professional football games, there's presumably a sense of investment in the NFL that Kaepernick's BLM protest undercut...
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:27 PM on October 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

I particularly took note when he claimed that intersectionality is a rhetorical contrivance made up for the purpose of criticizing Israel.

I've seen a lot of this and I don't know if it's Dershowitz's own private thing or whether there's more behind it. I understood intersectionality theory to be about recognising people's multiple intersecting roles and identities, and the insufficiency of either subsuming one group's interests in another or naively adding them together. In other words, the experiences of Black women can't be fully captured by treating them as women who are Black or as Black people who are women: their intersecting identities mean that the experiences of Black women need to be addressed separately.

Dershowitz seems to think intersectionality is about intersecting interests between oppressed groups, and focusing their attacks on a common target. I.e., getting Black groups to say that Israel is racist, women's groups to say that it's sexist, and so forth. That seems to be a totally different and inconsistent way of defining intersectionality, and I don't know whether it's originating from Dershowitz alone or whether it has any basis in reality.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:46 PM on October 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

Putin is using Interpol to go after Bill Browder

it's worse... Putin has accused Browder of murdering Magnitsky...

The worst thing is he's probably inspiring Trump and his Accomplices on ways to treat their enemies...
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:56 PM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

it's worse... Putin has accused Browder of murdering Magnitsky...

They’re both shitty people trying to fuck the other. Browder sold out of his country to make a dollar. Fuck him.
posted by Talez at 4:07 PM on October 22, 2017

"Jeffress has ... said Obama was paving the way for the Antichrist"

Well, hang on now ... I'm pretty sure he just said that Trump is the Antichrist.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:00 PM on October 22, 2017 [49 favorites]

wow cbs Miami reports Wilson's telephone lines are flooded with death threats, most coming from outside the state

I just--how did we get to lynching threats? I get that's a go-to for evil racist people, but is that really the first step? Death threats?
posted by angrycat at 5:07 PM on October 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

I just--how did we get to lynching threats? I get that's a go-to for evil racist people, but is that really the first step? Death threats?

Remember GamerGate? That's the default Republican move now, because the GamerGaters:alt-right ratio is 1:1.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:12 PM on October 22, 2017 [50 favorites]

Death threats are the very first thing anyone does these days.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:23 PM on October 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Not only death threats but ones aimed at who you are as a person for that extra soupçon of shittiness. So if you’re a woman its rape and death threats. If you’re a POC its lynching death threats. If you’re a woman POC you can look forward to variety depending on the mood of a the human fleck of fecal matter on the other side of the phone/screen.

Just as long as said fleck of fecal matter ensures you understand that they are doing this to dehumanize you.
posted by supercrayon at 5:30 PM on October 22, 2017 [19 favorites]

Jimmy Carter interviewed regarding Pres. Trump

“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter replied. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”

(He wants to be sent on a diplomatic mission to North Korea.)
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:02 PM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

“I want Mr. Kaepernick and others who are on a knee, I want them to to listen to the pain that that may cause somebody who, for example, had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat and why it hurts them to see somebody not standing. But I also want people to think about the pain he may be expressing about somebody who’s lost a loved one that they think was unfairly shot.”

I know it's old remarks, and racists never listened to him no matter what he said, and he tried hard against a nation of monsters he would rather have been working with. but. never mind that military widowers and orphans and widows have nothing to do with any football game and do not own the flag, the national anthem, or any other piece of the nation, and neither do soldiers, and nor do most of them pretend to. that is not actually my complaint here. my complaint is that how dare he not have said

"somebody who, for example, thinks they had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat" to go along with "somebody who’s lost a loved one that they think was unfairly shot"

parallel is parallel, fair is fair, and either deserving to be shot dead is all a matter of perspective and in the eye of the beholder, or it's not. either everyone gets suspected of imagining the unfairness of the brutal death of their loved one - or the death itself -- or nobody does. "that they think was unfairly shot," good god.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:03 PM on October 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

We're really going to keep tearing into Obama for comments he made over a year ago off the cuff right after Kap first protested and partly blame him for the current situation? Funny how nobody had major issues with it a fucking year ago. Everybody pretty much thought it was a fair and reasonable statement supportive of Kap's right to protest. Clearly Obama should've known Trump was going to win and use the NFL/anthem as a cudgel against POC and the First Amendment. Thanks Obama!
posted by chris24 at 8:12 PM on October 22, 2017 [54 favorites]

Data-based ranking of Colin Kaepernick's 2016 vs. current NFL QBs. Kaepernick would be an upgrade over a bunch of starting QBs, including Eli Manning, Cam Newton, Matthew Stafford, and Ben Roethlisberger.

Note that the ranking they use only measures passing, so QBs who run a lot don't credit for running.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:39 PM on October 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

Why Colin Kaepernick and I Decided to Take a Knee

After hours of careful consideration, and even a visit from Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former N.F.L. player, we came to the conclusion that we should kneel, rather than sit, the next day during the anthem as a peaceful protest. We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.

posted by kirkaracha at 8:40 PM on October 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

They’re both shitty people trying to fuck the other. Browder sold out of his country to make a dollar. Fuck him.

Can you expand on this? I know Browder is a globe-trotting capitalist who renounced US citizenship and can safely be presumed to have gotten some real blood on his hands in the course of making his fortune, but are there specific things about him that make him more morally compromised than the typical billionaire-turned-philanthropist? I'm only really aware of him in the context of the Magnitsky Act, where from what I can tell he seems to have been acting out of genuine altruism.
posted by contraption at 9:35 PM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

The WaPo has some coverage on the Trump organization's newest business expansion, Blues brothers Don Jr. and Eric Trump gamble on Mississippi tourism:

President Trump’s hotel company, the New York-based managers of luxury properties and golf courses around the globe, seems an unlikely presence in this struggling stretch of the Delta, where new businesses are hard to recruit and black residents are eight times more likely than whites to face unemployment.

But in June, the Trump Organization, now run by the president’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, bestowed a singular distinction upon Cleveland, population 12,000, and two nearby towns. It announced it would debut two new hotel brands here, beginning with a four-star, 100-room Scion hotel originally designed to replicate an antebellum plantation.

Good job guys! The article does note that construction has been halted and the plantation design may be scrapped. The hotels are a partnership with brothers Dinesh and Suresh Chawla, Mississippi hoteliers. The Scion hotel is new construction that the Chawlas are paying for and will license the Scion brand from Trump Inc, and the American Idea hotels will be existing chain hotels operated by the Chawlas that will license the Trump brand once their current franchise agreement expires. So this is another instance of slapping their name on someone else's property who both pays the licensing fee and takes all the business risk.

Bloomberg has a background on this partnership and previous failed business ventures of the sons Trump, How the Boys Run Trump Inc.: With Other People’s Money and Some Dubious Partners. Also, get ready for another emoluments lawsuit:

In 1785, King Louis XVI gave Benjamin Franklin, then ambassador to France, a portrait framed with 408 diamonds. Gifts of this type were so common (John Jay got a horse from the king of Spain) that it led the framers of the U.S. Constitution to bar such foreign emoluments without the consent of Congress. The Trump International Hotel in Washington has become the lightning rod for critics who see violations of this principle every time it hosts a party for the Kuwait Embassy or a council on U.S.-Turkish relations. Trump has promised to donate profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury. But there’s another clause of the Constitution known as the domestic emoluments clause. It says the president shall not receive any emolument, other than fixed compensation, from “the United States, or any of them.” That will invite more controversy if, say, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, a political ally, hosts an event at the Chawlas’ new Scion at West End when it opens in early 2018. The Trump Organization did not respond to questions about whether profits from domestic government sources will also be donated to the Treasury.

posted by peeedro at 9:44 PM on October 22, 2017 [23 favorites]

More from the interview with Hillary Clinton on the Graham Norton show:

Hillary Clinton Reveals She Tried to Skip Trump's Inauguration (Lexy Perez, Hollywood Reporter)
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:07 PM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

I guess this week is going to be "Angry Tweets about Hillary Clinton Week".

Again.
posted by mmoncur at 10:13 PM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

1989 Tour de Trump
posted by rhizome at 10:15 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

"And by the way, I spoke of the name of the young man"

Moving past the weird grammar, isn't this Trump explicitly contradicting Myeshia Johnson saying that he did not even remember her husband's name, i.e. he's now not only calling Wilson a liar but the widow as well?
posted by walrus at 11:22 PM on October 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

burning question: HOW DID THEY KNOW WHICH STEVE???

There is only one "steve".

It has many skin suits.

Sometimes our brains try to show us this with shared hallucino-perceptions of improbabilities such as one "man" wearing absurd numbers of collared shirts.
posted by Buntix at 11:32 PM on October 22, 2017 [18 favorites]

I’m guessing Kelly already has his handmaid picked out, in anticipation for when women are sacred again.

Caroline O. (@RVAwonk):

Leaked White House Memo Outlines Plans For All-Out War On Women’s Health - The memo reads like a wish-list straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:34 PM on October 22, 2017 [56 favorites]

“I want Mr. Kaepernick and others who are on a knee, I want them to to listen to the pain that that may cause somebody who, for example, had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat and why it hurts them to see somebody not standing..”

IMHO this controversy rooted in a cultural mismatch between military and civilian culture, and Steve Bannon (ex-Navy) is undoubtedly one of the people pushing it hard. "Honoring the Colors" is a sacred ritual in military culture. The flag is show, appropriate songs are sung (Reveille, Retreat, and To The Colors, each of which has its own protocols).

I recently did a volunteer standup comedy gig for an Army "stand-down" event, basically a services fair for ex-military including a number of homeless vets. It was a very informal, often scruffy event, and a lot of the vets there were pretty angry at the government for not providing promised benefits, medical care, etc. as well as for usual political reasons. Nonetheless, when the colors were presented as the national anthem was sung, everyone turned and observed with deep respect. It was clearly a sacred moment, and respect in that case DID in fact mean respecting the nation, the army and the sacrifice made by so many veterans.

Now of course Kaepernick is not a veteran and singing the national anthem at a football game is not this ritual, but it's not far different, and it's very understandable that anyone steeped in military culture would conflate them. Bannon knows this, which makes it the perfect wedge issue to accuse protestors of disrespecting the flag, nation, army, etc.

Obama was not wrong to caution protestors to consider the feelings of the those who've lost loved ones in battle or been injured themselves. That's why Kaepernick consulted with Nate Boyer, the white ex-Green Beret and ex-NFL player who suggested he take a knee instead of simply sitting. Kaepernick listened to Obama and Boyer and improved his message considerably. So spare me the cheap anti-Obama shot.
posted by msalt at 11:40 PM on October 22, 2017 [34 favorites]

Leaked White House Memo Outlines Plans For All-Out War On Women’s Health
Well, as another FPP today pointed out, "The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world" and the trumpsters think it isn't nearly high enough.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:42 PM on October 22, 2017 [18 favorites]

Sometimes our brains try to show us this with shared hallucino-perceptions of improbabilities such as one "man" wearing absurd numbers of collared shirts.
posted by flabdablet at 3:17 AM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

The great dealmaker? Lawmakers find Trump to be an untrustworthy negotiator (WaPo)

President Trump campaigned as one of the world’s greatest dealmakers, but after nine months of struggling to broker agreements, lawmakers in both parties increasingly consider him an untrustworthy, chronically inconsistent and easily distracted negotiator.

As Trump prepares to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to unify his party ahead of a high-stakes season of votes on tax cuts and budget measures, some Republicans are openly questioning his negotiating abilities and devising strategies to keep him from changing his mind.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:30 AM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

Well, they’ve been using Rep. Wilson as a proxy to attack the family. Something tells me a more direct attack on a Gold Star mother is coming.

@rickklein:
Myeshia Johnson on Trump: "He couldn't remember my husband's name... I heard him stumbling... why couldn't you remember this name?" @GMA

@kylegriffin1:
Sgt. La David Johnson's widow: "[Trump] couldn't remember my husband's name... That's what hurt me the most." VIDEO

@rickklein:
Myeshia Johnson: "Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated. What she said was 100% correct." @GMA

@PhilipRucker:
Myeshia Johnson says she didn't talk to Trump, just listened, and was "very upset and hurt, very."
posted by chris24 at 4:50 AM on October 23, 2017 [12 favorites]

@kylegriffin1:
Q: Is there anything you'd like to say to the president now?

Myeshia Johnson: No. I don't— I have nothing to say to him.

@kylegriffin1:
Q: You were upset when you got off the phone?

Myeshia Johnson: "Oh very. Very upset and hurt. Very It made me cry even worse." VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 4:56 AM on October 23, 2017 [17 favorites]

The undocumented immigrant known as Jane Doe who is requesting an abortion is a good example of the Republican War on Women. Not only do they want to force this 17 year old to give birth, they then want to expel her from the country. Of course her child will be a US citizen but these days that doesn't matter. So a girl who fled her abusive family and came here will be sent back as a single parent.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:10 AM on October 23, 2017 [39 favorites]

The undocumented immigrant known as Jane Doe who is requesting an abortion is a good example of the Republican War on Women. Not only do they want to force this 17 year old to give birth, they then want to expel her from the country. Of course her child will be a US citizen but these days that doesn't matter. So a girl who fled her abusive family and came here will be sent back as a single parent.

Well, since the forced birth of the a US Citizen happens without her consent, she doesn't have to take the baby with her, does she? Congratulations Taxpayer! Here's your new kid.
posted by mikelieman at 5:17 AM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Q: Is there anything you'd like to say to the president now?

Myeshia Johnson: No. I don't— I have nothing to say to him.

Me, two days ago: And now we're about two days away from a grieving military family live on the news begging him to leave them alone and describing the abuse and threats they're probably already receiving from horrible Trump fans.

Gee, I'm semi-psychic! I hope the racist fuckheads leave Johnson alone now that she's had the temerity to go public so that the second part doesn't happen. But this is the United States, so the chances of that are probably not great.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:19 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

I braved the Facebook comments after our local news station reported on McCain’s bone spur jab and it’s like a coordinated attack on his character. Part of me is impressed at the efficiency: the current Trumpist party line is “say absolutely nothing about bone spurs, accuse McCain of being a traitor and a murderer. Throw in Clinton going to Oxford for good measure”. Damn.
posted by lydhre at 5:23 AM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Of course her child will be a US citizen

Maybe they'll just detain her for a while and deport her a month or two before she's due.
posted by ryanrs at 5:40 AM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Well, they’ve been using Rep. Wilson as a proxy to attack the family. Something tells me a more direct attack on a Gold Star mother is coming.

And so it begins -- @realDonaldTrump: "I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!"
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:44 AM on October 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

Taking a knee = disrespectful

Calling a war widow a liar = fine
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:46 AM on October 23, 2017 [71 favorites]

Domenico Montanaro on NPR:

[President Trump] always seems most comfortable in a feud, in some kind of political fight. He doesn't back down, he always digs in, and it always seems to be personal. If you go after him, he's going to go after you, no matter who you are. But when it does come to members of the black community, or people of color, he does seem to feel like there does seem to be an even higher bar, and it becomes more difficult. He's less sensitive when it comes to a lot of issues around race, and a lot of people in the black community are feeling disrespected by what the President has done and said in this instance.

In case you missed it, that was the Political Editor of NPR calling the President of the United States a racist. It's a little awkward, and you can tell in the audio that he's trying to find a way to not say it, but he says it anyway.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:59 AM on October 23, 2017 [34 favorites]

I dunno. I'd say Trump is keenly sensitive to issues of race.
posted by ryanrs at 6:04 AM on October 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

In case you missed it, that was the Political Editor of NPR calling the President of the United States a racist. It's a little awkward, and you can tell in the audio that he's trying to find a way to not say it, but he says it anyway.

so bold
posted by entropicamericana at 6:10 AM on October 23, 2017 [37 favorites]

It needs to be put in Trump's face that people do not believe him because we know he is a compulsive liar.
posted by thelonius at 6:12 AM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

so bold

It's pretty much the Walter Cronkite moment of our generation tbh
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:24 AM on October 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

It needs to be put in Trump's face that people do not believe him because we know he is a compulsive liar.

Agreed. I think it needs to be put to Trump's face that he is full of shit, in those words. For over two years, no one has really aggressively called him a bullshitting liar to his face.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 6:26 AM on October 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

State Department Reportedly Revokes Visa Of Magnitsky Act Campaigner, Scott Neuman, NPR

The State Department has reportedly revoked a visa for British citizen Bill Browder, a hedge-fund manager-turned human-rights activist responsible for the Magnitsky Act. The 2012 U.S. law is aimed at punishing Russian officials believed responsible for the death in a Moscow prison of Sergei Magnitsky, who was allegedly beaten and denied medical care.

The cancelling of Browder's visa came on the same day that the Kremlin issued yet another international arrest warrant for him via Interpol.

[includes tweets from Browder, Michael McFaul (Obama-era ambassador to Russia), Preet Bharara]

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 6:26 AM on October 23, 2017 [23 favorites]

In case you missed it, that was the Political Editor of NPR calling the President of the United States a racist.

In the most NPR way possible, of course. But still a step up from saying "The President has an ongoing problem with conforming to the ever-shifting standards of political correctness," which puts the blame back on those of us* who can't seem to avoid being offended by every little thing.

(*Myself included, of course.)
posted by hangashore at 6:31 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

It needs to be put in Trump's face that people do not believe him because we know he is a compulsive liar.

It needs to be put in Trump's face that we don't care what he thinks because he is a treasonous, illegitimate, very temporary resident of the White House.
posted by NorthernLite at 6:44 AM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

For over two years, no one has really aggressively called him a bullshitting liar to his face.

The first line of defense, for people caught lying, is usually to demand, with truculence: "Are you calling me a liar?", like we still fight fucking duels or something. Now my normal counter-move here is to say: I didn't call you anything - I pointed out that what you said is untrue. But when and if Trump tries this, perhaps in a debate, maybe a simple "yeah, that works for me" would be effective.
posted by thelonius at 6:48 AM on October 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

On one occasion, three sources said, Republican Representative Trey Gowdy told Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and White House aide, that he was testifying voluntarily and could leave whenever he liked. After about two-and-a-half hours, one of the sources said, Kushner took the cue and left before Democrats had finished questioning him. Kushner’s lawyer and Gowdy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Gowdy has now gotten around to responding, telling the NYT, "Congressional investigations unfortunately are usually overtly political investigations, where it is to one side’s advantage to drag things out.{...} This is politics."

But remember, when it came to his endless demands for every document even tangentially related to Benghazi Gowdy declared, "There are certain things in our culture that have to transcend politics."
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:52 AM on October 23, 2017 [43 favorites]

The GOP and respect for the troops.

@WalshFreedom
Trump never attacked her.
Yes, Myeshia Johnson has a right to speak. But now that she's gotten political, we have a right to attack her.
posted by chris24 at 6:53 AM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

A right to attack her? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
posted by h00py at 6:55 AM on October 23, 2017 [90 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!

The next claim is going to be "I held him in my arms as he died, fake news won't cover it! Sad!"
posted by PontifexPrimus at 6:56 AM on October 23, 2017 [21 favorites]

More on the Browder story:

Russia puts British Putin critic on Interpol wanted list , Mark Townsend, The Guardian

Turning Tables in Magnitsky Case, Russia Accuses a Nemesis of Murder, Andrew E. Kramer, NYT

Why did the US just revoke Putin critic Bill Browder's visa? Tim Hume, VICE News

Last week, Canada became the fourth country after the U.S., Britain, and Estonia to pass a Magnitsky Act, leading Vladimir Putin to accuse Browder of “illegal activity.”

Browder, who testified at a congressional hearing in July on Russian election interference, said he was made aware that Russia had successfully placed him on Interpol’s list after he received an email from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Saturday informing him his “global entry status” had been revoked.

Four previous attempts by Russia to place Browder on the list failed; on each occasion[,] Interpol said the move was politically motivated.

The fifth time, Moscow used a loophole in the process that allows states to unilaterally place individuals on the database through a “diffusion notice,” effectively bypassing Interpol scrutiny, Browder told EU Observer on Sunday.

“This is a loophole that’s clearly being abused and needs to be closed,” he said. “It’s clear that countries like Russia are serial abusers of Interpol and shouldn’t be treated the same as legitimate states.”

Last year, the Council of Europe criticized Russia’s efforts to arrest Browder through Interpol as “abuses” of the system.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 6:57 AM on October 23, 2017 [18 favorites]

Maybe they'll just detain her for a while and deport her a month or two before she's due.

This, absolutely.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:00 AM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

Somebody tell me again how I need to be empathetic and reach out to downtrodden Trump supporters because they're so misunderstood.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:01 AM on October 23, 2017 [50 favorites]

After about two-and-a-half hours, one of the sources said, Kushner took the cue and left before Democrats had finished questioning him. Kushner’s lawyer and Gowdy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Christ what a dumbass.

I mean, on top of everything else. I realize it's like pointing out the leopard is uncouth while it eats your face, but still.

Dumbass.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:06 AM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

> Yes, Myeshia Johnson has a right to speak. But now that she's gotten political, we have a right to attack her.

Republicans value their party tribe over their country, the military and/or any other institution in this world.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:13 AM on October 23, 2017 [24 favorites]

Tom Steyer launches $10 million campaign to impeach Trump

FWIW, I've seen this ad twice this morning on MSNBC. This may be related to a potential Senate run, but we never get bombarded with political ads.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:32 AM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Excommunicated Cardinal: "Agreed. I think it needs to be put to Trump's face that he is full of shit, in those words. For over two years, no one has really aggressively called him a bullshitting liar to his face."

He wouldn't listen to anyone who said this. I don't think he cares whether you believe him. The important part is whether you have the power to do anything about it.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:47 AM on October 23, 2017 [15 favorites]

But now that she's gotten political, we have a right to attack her.

So nice to know that grieving widow season has opened. What's the bag limit?

I keep being reminded of the phrase "the person is political"; it always is. Everything the state does or doesn't do impacts us on a personal level; we can't help but "get political" because everything fucking is.
posted by nubs at 7:52 AM on October 23, 2017 [16 favorites]

A right to attack her? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

What isn't?
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:59 AM on October 23, 2017 [20 favorites]

A right to attack her? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

What is wrong with Joe Walsh?

Everything.
posted by srboisvert at 8:02 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

It's almost funny, the Browder/Interpol loophole kerfluffle. His book is a few years old now and it's titled for this exact happenstance: Red Notice.

It's not funny though, because this is Step 1 in the Magnitsky Act going out of style. And if the Magnitsky act goes out of style (like so many of Obama's other accomplishments have), Russia will have won a big battle in their war on American Democracy. You can criticize Browder's character and motivations, but the results of the Magnitsky Act ( effectively freezing the ill-gotten assets of Russian Oligarchs) are unquestionably good for humanity.
posted by carsonb at 8:05 AM on October 23, 2017 [32 favorites]

I just tell anyone who complains, "That's political" that EVERYTHING is political, and they're ignorant children whose opinion is best ignored.
posted by mikelieman at 8:06 AM on October 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

Russia will have won a big battle in their war on American Democracy

It's probably okay for them to just go ahead and hang their 'Mission Accomplished' banner.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 8:22 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

the Magnitsky Act ( effectively freezing the ill-gotten assets of Russian Oligarchs)

Also, I've been seeing this misstated in the media lately, saying the Magnitsky Act seizes those assets. That is wrong. The act is really just a list of known wealthy criminals, and it says anyone who wants to deal with the US Treasury can't deal with anyone on the list. Show me a bank on Earth that doesn't want financial access to the US Treasury. So the corrupt billionaires can't spend their money except in Russia, but the whole point of their criminal exercise is to remove it from Russia—that's the theft. Putin's power is based on his financial/state control of the Russian oligarchs, and it dissipates if the money he promises them can't be used.
posted by carsonb at 8:30 AM on October 23, 2017 [48 favorites]

He wouldn't listen to anyone who said this. I don't think he cares whether you believe him. The important part is whether you have the power to do anything about it.

True, but that wouldn't be the point. It would be a step in the right direction by the media—and a desperately needed signal to the country that they're doing their job.
posted by Rykey at 8:31 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Metafilter: It has many skin suits.
posted by Oyéah at 8:34 AM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Browder's long-running document of his travails with Russia, the Russian Untouchables website. Also, his telling of the Sergei Magnitsky tragedy.
posted by carsonb at 8:35 AM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

either everyone gets suspected of imagining the unfairness of the brutal death of their loved one - or the death itself -- or nobody does.

This is really unfair to Obama, and puts a construction on the statement that I don't think was intended. He doesn't say anything about unfairness of combat deaths, possibly because those are fair deaths that are still terrible. It is far more fair to be shot while engaging in combat you signed up for than to be shot in the back by a cop who thought you might be dangerous.
posted by corb at 8:37 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Here's the petition Tom Steyer's put up, along with video of the ad he's running.
posted by Rykey at 8:38 AM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Speaking of Trump Hallowe'en masks, don't forget that the They Live Donald Trump mask is still a thing, and certainly an option for the upcoming holiday.
posted by hanov3r at 8:45 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

I just tell anyone who complains, "That's political" that EVERYTHING is political

Cf. people who think that any issue about what things mean can be dismissed by saying "That's just semantics"
posted by thelonius at 8:48 AM on October 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

After Controversy Over Condolence Calls, Can Trump And The White House Refocus? (NPR, Oct. 23) -- my favorite part:

... Trump's fight with Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., over things as petty as a flagpole at his golf course, putting hedges in front of houses he thought were ugly and the name of a road. He wanted his name on it.

He had been greeted as something of a conquering hero in that town. But the relationship soured after lawsuits and threats. So much so that the Republican town that voted for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Direct contact with Trump as a slum lord / land brander will lead you to change parties.

But really, the question is "After the latest round of controversies, what the hell will push enough people to dump Trump?" His lowest disapproval rating was +20, in the wake of Charlottesville, and since it's popped "up" +10.7 disapproval on Sept. 23, 2017, coincidentally the day he proclaimed Sept. 24 Gold Star Mother's and Father's Day. He plummeted since then, back to the +15 to +16 disapproval rating range.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:03 AM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

I can't help but wonder whether every time Trump digs deeper into shitpiles of his own making, he becomes more relatable to his base -- not just (in their minds) admirable, but specifically relatable.

How many times has the typical Trumper, in their personal life, been on the hot seat among their company/family/friends, for saying or doing something ranging from inconsiderate to grotesquely out of line? And how many of them feel "forced" to lie afterward -- either lying that they're sorry, or in Trump fashion, lying about what they said or did?

The way they see it, the world makes less sense every day (what with the de-centering of male Christian whiteness, etc) and they're just trying to hold onto a sense of self, no matter how much blame they must shift to do so. Making America Great Again. Bleccch.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:05 AM on October 23, 2017 [39 favorites]

> I can't help but wonder whether every time Trump digs deeper into shitpiles of his own making, he becomes more relatable to his base -- not just (in their minds) admirable, but specifically relatable.
> posted by InTheYear2017

Yeah, that's just perfect.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:28 AM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Ok, for slightly more substance:

NYT: Trump Disrupts Tax Debate by Ruling Out 401(k) Change

President Trump rejected reports that Republicans are weighing a cap on contributions to the popular tax-deferred retirement plans.
Many Republicans fear that Mr. Trump’s comment could be the start of a pattern of disruption that impedes their efforts to overhaul the tax code.

The start of a pattern of disruption, you say? Hmmmm.
(Strokes chin thoughtfully.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:34 AM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

After Controversy Over Condolence Calls, Can Trump And The White House Refocus?

"Refocus" implies there was ever any focus to begin with. But aside from that, can then (re)focus? No, but they can start up yet another dire-and-totally-serious garbage fire that causes real harm and the rest of us will have to focus on that. And his supporters will never notice that literally everything he does is negative and harmful.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:35 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oh definitely, for sure, InTheYear2017. His base is people exactly like him, of which there are a lot. Anyone who has, like, existed--but especially existed as a woman, person of color, or family member of someone with an untreated personality disorder--knows how many people out there are small time versions of Trump himself. He makes them feel awesome about themselves.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:36 AM on October 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

Donald Trump, Making America Grate Again, every day.
posted by Oyéah at 9:39 AM on October 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Twitter has it as "Morons Are Governing America".
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:41 AM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

In the most NPR way possible, of course

Note that despite their repeated claims of being earnest neutrals who are trying hard to thread the needle and avoid the use of charged words in their reporting, NPR had no problem with Robert Siegel calling the deceased Mike Brown "thuggish" during some of its early reports on the events in Ferguson. Siegel's non-apology for this -- Listeners may hear the implication of 'black' in the word 'thug.' I just don't -- is flaccidly weak.

I always keep that in mind whenever they try to wrap the Cloak of Non-Bias around themselves to cover their soft-touch of Republicans in general and Trump in particular.

On to the kneeling protests and responses to the same, I wonder wha the NFL's policy is on fans -- and players -- sporting the Confederate flag. I mean, it seems to me that sporting the flag of a regime that tried quite hard to kill people defending the American flag is a hell of a lot more insulting than kneeling silently during the anthem.

In John Kelly news, seems some angry vets have taken to calling him a Blue Falcon in response to his polishing of Trump's shoes and posterior recently. (Blue Falcon = Buddy F**ker, someone who screws over a colleague for self gain.)

Finally, noting Trump et al's attacks on MoC Wilson, I wonder where all the chivalrous men -- Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike -- who used to nobly step up to defend, for example, Sarah Palin, Anne Romney, and various other Republican women from attacks that got too personal are. Probably doing the same thing they did whenever there was a vile attack on Michelle Obama: drinking a nice tall cup of utter silence.
posted by lord_wolf at 9:42 AM on October 23, 2017 [56 favorites]

NAACP Elects New President, Will Assume More Political Non-Profit Tax Status (NPR, Oct. 21, 2017)

The organization announced its new president and CEO and its intention to alter its tax status to a non-profit category that permits more aggressive political lobbying.

Forty-nine-year-old Derrick Johnson is familiar not only with the organization but also with the post he was unanimously elected to Saturday for a three-year term. Johnson had served as interim president and CEO since July.

In February, he had been elected as vice-chairman of the board of directors. Before that, he served as state president of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP.

During a phone call with reporters, Johnson also said the NAACP's national office would soon transition from the 501(c)3 non-profit status it currently holds to become a 501(c)4.

The change will lift significant restrictions on the NAACP's ability to engage in political lobbying. IRS rules permit political actions by 501(c)4 groups, though not as their "primary activity."

posted by filthy light thief at 9:49 AM on October 23, 2017 [26 favorites]

Agreed. I think it needs to be put to Trump's face that he is full of shit, in those words. For over two years, no one has really aggressively called him a bullshitting liar to his face.

I know the perfect backing track for that: Mouthful of Shit.


It's practically written for Trump already, it's even got the golden showers references built in.... (Admittedly the rapped bits would need a rewrite).
posted by Buntix at 10:01 AM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

No shit, scaryblackdeath. God, I hate dumbass headlines like that which don't even know what point there is to miss.
posted by Melismata at 10:07 AM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

From yesterday: The purpose of right-wing media is to take their bullshit and stuff it into a fact-shaped sausage casing so it can be sold to the public. That is it. Anything else is severely mis-understanding their goal.

Just to point out that that's been the pattern of the right-wing media for years now. Way back during the debate over W's adventure in Iran, right-wing blogs would float bogus, absurd-on-their-face talking points, which would get picked up by Instapundit, which would get picked up by Drudge, which would get picked up by Fox, which would get picked up by the likes of NPR as "critics say" quote, thus neatly injecting fact-free hogwash into the public discourse. And now there's even less critical thinking in the way.

If I worked in a newsroom, i'd make getting caught reading Drudge a firing offense.
posted by Gelatin at 10:10 AM on October 23, 2017 [25 favorites]

Myeshia Johnson: I Have 'Nothing to Say' to Trump After Controversial Call. Pregnant widow of Sgt. La David Johnson sides with Rep. Frederica Wilson in new 'Good Morning America' interview
posted by homunculus at 10:10 AM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

So the corrupt billionaires can't spend their money except in Russia, but the whole point of their criminal exercise is to remove it from Russia—that's the theft.

Nice summary. It really isn't complicated. Kleptocrats don't like being stuck in the country that they looted. Donald Trump can obviously sympathize.
posted by diogenes at 10:13 AM on October 23, 2017 [21 favorites]

NYT: Trump Disrupts Tax Debate by Ruling Out 401(k) Change

Sorry but this is Trump playing Tee ball with the tax cut republicans. They put this big fat ball on the Tee for him so he could knock it off. There was no way they were going to go after 401(k) contribution limits. Trumpists have a median salary in the 70Ks. These are precisely the people who use 401Ks - enough cash to be able contribute but not enough to be rich in retirement.

Trump is Michael Strahan and the Republicans are Brett Farve.
posted by srboisvert at 10:16 AM on October 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Missed the edit window: W's adventure in Iraq, not Iran.

It's Trump who is antagonizing Iran now.
posted by Gelatin at 10:19 AM on October 23, 2017

The undocumented immigrant known as Jane Doe who is requesting an abortion is a good example of the Republican War on Women. Not only do they want to force this 17 year old to give birth, they then want to expel her from the country. Of course her child will be a US citizen but these days that doesn't matter.

I am not someone prone to conspiracy or claims of extreme acts, but I have to say that in this particular case? I have not a doubt in my mind that, if it came to it, they would throw this woman in an SUV and rush her across a border if she suddenly developed labor pains while in their custody. Even if it meant she gave birth by the side of a road. Regardless of the legal situation.

People talk about suspension of elections for 2020 or other such stuff and I just roll my eyes. Because I don't assume folks will do things that are extreme by the norms of their group. The inertia of systems will roll over most efforts to disrupt them.

But the culture of our border security and immigration enforcement now is absolutely one of "I'm going to do it and you can try to take me to account later." I doubt there's a single person working around the detention of Jane Doe who doesn't think they'd be hailed as a hero for such an act and secure in the knowledge that powerful people would come to their defense.

It is absolutely chilling how easily I can imagine the "Hero prevents anchor baby" headlines and coverage from the lunatic right media.
posted by phearlez at 10:24 AM on October 23, 2017 [35 favorites]

NYT: Trump Disrupts Tax Debate by Ruling Out 401(k) Change

Sorry but this is Trump playing Tee ball with the tax cut republicans. They put this big fat ball on the Tee for him so he could knock it off.

Have you seriously learned nothing from the last year? Never ascribe to planning and strategy what can be explained by Trump just doing whatever the fuck he wants. Not only because it's his nature and he can't help it, but because you have just watched it play out with the health care efforts. If it benefits his strategy hahah no wait goals then it's just that it was the time of day for that broken clock.

Trump can't manage strategy within his own branch. He sure as shit can't manage it between himself and the legislative.
posted by phearlez at 10:29 AM on October 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

Finally, noting Trump et al's attacks on MoC Wilson, I wonder where all the chivalrous men -- Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike -- who used to nobly step up to defend, for example, Sarah Palin, Anne Romney, and various other Republican women from attacks that got too personal are. Probably doing the same thing they did whenever there was a vile attack on Michelle Obama: drinking a nice tall cup of utter silence.

Of course! Chivalry, and benevolent sexism in general, is for white women. Women of color, especially black women, get the hostile, hateful kind. Don't forget, white women voted for Trump.

As far as media bubbles are concerned, this article from the Columbia Journalism Review shows that it's consumers of right wing media, specifically Fox and Breitbart, that are in a bubble. Liberals who read Vox and Huffington Post also read mainstream publications like the New York Times and CNN, both-sides-ism and all. Conservatives get all their news from the likes of Breitbart. Liberals who get all their news from, say, AlterNet, are very rare. The problem is that the same media that lefties consume is full of both-sides-ism whereas Breitbart and Fox is All Bullshit All The Time. If only they could be shut down, or disappear in a puff of smoke, or...
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:33 AM on October 23, 2017 [41 favorites]

Ok, Rand Paul being a dick to Lindsay Graham on Twitter kind of made my day.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 10:47 AM on October 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

Trump is giving a joint statement with PM Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore. Stick around! Afterwards he will probably take some questions from the press and could debut some exciting lies about the war widow he's feuding with or maybe even an unexpected new thing to scream into a pillow about for the next 48 hours.
posted by theodolite at 10:52 AM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

> A beautiful Twitter fable from Ken Tremendous: "All of this recent Trump stuff reminds me of the parable of the Scorpion and the Frog."

Please please please.
posted by homunculus at 10:53 AM on October 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

Here's that Ken Tremendous tweetstorm in a human-readable format:

1. All of this recent Trump stuff reminds me of the parable of the Scorpion and the Frog.
2. A Frog needs to cross a river. The Scorpion says, “Get on my back and I’ll take you across.”
3. The Frog says, “But what if you sting me?” The Scorpion says, “I won’t sting you, I promise.”
4. So the Frog gets on the Scorpion’s back and they start to swim across.
5. After a few seconds, the Scorpion says, “You know, Frogs are rapists, and murderers, and I’m gonna build a wall to keep you all out.”
6. Then he says, “This is what disabled Frogs are like,” and he makes a series of unpleasant gestures.
7. Then he says, “I grabbed a bunch of Frogs by the frog pussy, and I’m a star, so they let me do it.”
8. The Frog remained quiet, but he was getting a little, like, freaked out.
9. Then the Scorpion said, “John McCain isn’t a hero because he got captured,” and “STDs are my Vietnam,” and “I know more than generals.”
10. Then he said, “Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. and I have proof.” The Frog said “What is it?” but the Scorpion didn’t say.
11. Then the Scorpion's whole family met withRussian oligarchs in secret. “That’s illegal,” said the Frog. “Fake news," said the Scorpion.
12. “But I’m literally watching it happen, right in front of me,” said the Frog. “The NFL players shouldn’t kneel!” said the Scorpion.
13. The Frog got confused because the subject had changed to NFL players kneeling. The Frog was pretty mentally fatigued, by this point.
14. Then the Scorpion dismantled a bunch of safety regulations and appointed a ton of awful judges and tried to ban entire religions.
15. “Where are we going,” asked the Frog suddenly, “this isn’t the way across.” “I’m going golfing for the 75th time in 10 months,” he said.
16. “That seems like a lot,” said the Frog. “Fuck you, I’m the Scorpion, I can do whatever. Also, who are you, and why are you on my back?”
17. “I’m the Frog,” he said. “Do you have advanced dementia?” “No! My brain great! I’m the smartest Scorpion in the…” He looked confused.
18. “…The ‘world?’” asked the Frog. But the Scorpion was just watching TV and yelling at the screen. Then he dozed off.
19. The Frog was freaked out. He read an article in the NY Times that some Frogs in the Midwest still liked the Scorpion. It was pointless.
20. When they got to the riverbed, he hopped off. Then the Scorpion stung him! As he was dying, the Frog said, “Why did you do that?”
21. The Scorpion replied, “I don’t fucking know. Why do I do anything? I’m 71, a complete asshole, and my brain has massively deteriorated.”
22. "But you guys elected me -- well, you and the Russians -- and the GOP is so horny for tax cuts for rich people they won't do shit."
23. "Am I sorry I stung you? No. I could careless. Business at my riverbank hotel is up 30%. I'm rolling in dough. Also who are you?"
24. The Frog died. The Scorpion was last seen getting into a limo with Lindsey Graham, wearing a polo shirt and dark pants.
25. And that’s the ancient fable of the Scorpion and the Frog. You can see why it sort of reminds me of what’s going on.

posted by The Tensor at 10:55 AM on October 23, 2017 [169 favorites]

Have you seriously learned nothing from the last year? Never ascribe to planning and strategy what can be explained by Trump just doing whatever the fuck he wants. Not only because it's his nature and he can't help it, but because you have just watched it play out with the health care efforts. If it benefits his strategy hahah no wait goals then it's just that it was the time of day for that broken clock.

Trump can't manage strategy within his own branch. He sure as shit can't manage it between himself and the legislative.

Oh Trump ain't managing this (or anything). The ball was put on the Tee by the tax cutters. It's Door in the Face manipulation of both Trump and his base. They knew what he would do when they floated the idea and they knew the popular reaction to the proposal would be outrage. They know they have to float things for him to reject so that Trump assuage the populist parts of his base.
posted by srboisvert at 10:56 AM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Since it's not mentioned in his bio anywhere: For those not already familiar, "Ken Tremendous" is Parks & Rec/Brooklyn Nine-Nine/The Good Place creator Michael Schur.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:00 AM on October 23, 2017 [39 favorites]

@rickklein:
Myeshia Johnson on Trump: "He couldn't remember my husband's name... I heard him stumbling... why couldn't you remember this name?" @GMA

Because Trump can't be arsed to do the most minimal homework as president*. That, coupled with his abject lack of humanity.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:03 AM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Isn’t it the scorpion that needs the ride across the river on the frog, or am I missing some meaning attributed to switching their roles?
posted by erisfree at 11:05 AM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

am I missing some meaning attributed to switching their roles?

I think it's a play on the fact that the GOP hitched their wagon to Trump, rather than the other way around.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 11:08 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Either way, we knew he was a scorpion when they voted him in.
posted by erisfree at 11:09 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

chris24: Myeshia Johnson on Trump: "He couldn't remember my husband's name... I heard him stumbling... why couldn't you remember this name?"

Mental Wimp: Because Trump can't be arsed to do the most minimal homework as president*. That, coupled with his abject lack of humanity.

The man's awfulness aside, it is weird that Sgt. Johnson's file apparently wasn't on his desk when he called her. I assume that wouldn't be some breach of protocol. Maybe Samantha Bee was onto something with her facetious #TrumpCantRead conspiracy theory?
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:24 AM on October 23, 2017 [12 favorites]

Sorry but this is Trump playing Tee ball with the tax cut republicans. They put this big fat ball on the Tee for him so he could knock it off.

There is by this point zero indication that Paul Ryan is remotely this strategic,
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:29 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Also, there's ample evidence that they would try to pass the Grind Poor People Into Flour Act Of 2017 if they thought they could whip enough votes, PR be damned.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:30 AM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

He can't read without reading glasses, which he is too vain to wear.there was an article in The Daily Mail yesterday with a shot taken showing him wearing glasses in his limo yesterday coming back from golf. Supposedly he was 'working' but I can only imagine he had details of some money making scheme given to him by a crony.
posted by readery at 11:31 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

GQ: “He gets mad at me at times, he yells at me at times, but he respects me,” Christie says of his relationship with Donald Trump

I'm a little concerned about my apparently boundless capacity for enjoying Christie's meatloaf-debasement.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:32 AM on October 23, 2017 [50 favorites]

“He gets mad at me at times, he yells at me at times, but he respects me,” Christie says of his relationship with Donald Trump

Poor Reek.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:34 AM on October 23, 2017 [17 favorites]

The man's awfulness aside, it is weird that Sgt. Johnson's file apparently wasn't on his desk when he called her.

Can seriously no one give some corrective eye surgery to the President of the United States so his vain ass will read the shit in front of him? No one remembers the name of every single KIA. That's why people have aides. Aside from his monstrous lack of empathy, his vanity is just as likely to kill us all as anything else.
posted by corb at 11:44 AM on October 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

“He gets mad at me at times, he yells at me at times, but he respects me,” Christie says of his relationship with Donald Trump

Good god, he sounds like an abused spouse.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:45 AM on October 23, 2017 [69 favorites]

The man's awfulness aside, it is weird that Sgt. Johnson's file apparently wasn't on his desk when he called her.

Trump being Trump, I've been assuming that the name La David threw him for a loop. We're lucky that he didn't treat the widow to an extended riff on "You people have such interesting names..." When Trump later said he "spoke of the name" it probably means that he did make those jokes but only to his staff.
posted by peeedro at 11:47 AM on October 23, 2017 [24 favorites]

“He gets mad at me at times, he yells at me at times, but he respects me,” Christie says of his relationship with Donald Trump

"He's a cruel man, but fair." [fake]
posted by Sys Rq at 11:49 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

corb: Can seriously no one give some corrective eye surgery to the President of the United States so his vain ass will read the shit in front of him?

Aside from not knowing the medical specifics, I'm pretty sure his vanity itself would prevent him from cooperating. It's not just about public image (the usual sense of "vanity" about personal appearance); he would literally insist to any eye surgeon in the world that his vision is 20/20.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:50 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Better than 20/20, surely. Don't you see how good his genes are?
posted by contraption at 11:56 AM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is paranoid about going under anesthetic.
posted by rhizome at 11:57 AM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

GQ: “He gets mad at me at times, he yells at me at times, but he respects me,” Christie says of his relationship with Donald Trump

It's like if the cowed, toadying "two coats of wax" Biff from the end of Back to the Future somehow met up with the rich murderer Biff from Back to the Future Part II.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:02 PM on October 23, 2017 [21 favorites]

It's like if the cowed, toadying "two coats of wax" Biff from the end of Back to the Future somehow met up with the rich murderer Biff from Back to the Future Part II.

Eternal Biffcursion
Ourobiffos
[Biffs all the way down]
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:05 PM on October 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

the rich murderer Biff from Back to the Future Part II.

What burns my evens is that he was a riff on Trump. People knew how much of a joke he was 30 years ago. AAAAAAARGH!
posted by Fleebnork at 12:05 PM on October 23, 2017 [31 favorites]

It's like if the cowed, toadying "two coats of wax" Biff from the end of Back to the Future somehow met up with the rich murderer Biff from Back to the Future Part II.

Which is extra hilarious since Biff was inspired by Donald Trump
posted by Twain Device at 12:06 PM on October 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

Beware the Both Siderism: The New York Times is in dangerous territory when it comes to Trump.
posted by homunculus at 12:13 PM on October 23, 2017 [25 favorites]

Current WaPo headline: "Lawmakers question Trump’s dealmaking skills, say he’s an unreliable negotiator"

*rubs eyes in disbelief* Who is more clueless, the lawmakers or the WaPo??
posted by Melismata at 12:16 PM on October 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Who is more clueless, the lawmakers or the WaPo??

[por_que_no_los_dos.jpg]
posted by hanov3r at 12:23 PM on October 23, 2017 [20 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is paranoid about going under anesthetic.

One of the fun body horror parts about corrective eye surgery is that you actually have to be awake (your eyes have to be open) so you can see when the surgeon flips your lens back to tinker with your cornea.

Also you still have near-sightedness if you are older because the eye loses the ability to change to adjust vision so it wouldn't help him.
posted by winna at 12:34 PM on October 23, 2017 [12 favorites]

Thank you for sharing that, winna.
posted by Melismata at 12:36 PM on October 23, 2017 [16 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is paranoid about going under anesthetic.

It's not paranoia when most of the world wants you to stay under.
posted by srboisvert at 12:40 PM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

Pentagon just announced that Gen. Dunford will brief press at 4 p.m. about operations in Niger, where four U.S. soldiers were killed.

I watched Mrs. Johnson's interview on GMA. She and her husband clearly had a great marriage. Her face lit up a few times when she spoke of him. It was heartbreaking to watch.
posted by jgirl at 12:40 PM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

hmm didn't Bush have to sign a 25th amendment transfer when he went under for a... colonoscopy, I think it was?

or was that The West Wing

2017: the year I couldn't remember if something happened during the Bush or the Bartlett administration
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:43 PM on October 23, 2017 [15 favorites]

Bush. In 2002, Cheney was President for a couple of hours while Bush had a colonoscopy.
posted by zarq at 12:46 PM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Pentagon just announced that Gen. Dunford will brief press at 4 p.m. about operations in Niger, where four U.S. soldiers were killed.

No joke: as I read this sentence, before I even got to "4pm" I already felt a huge pit in my stomach because we're about due for the White House to change the current narrative by shifting us into an even worse catastrofuck and I thought "Oh god who are we gonna bomb now?"

I'm at a point where I'm relieved when they stick with the current shitstorm of the day/week because the only alternative we ever see is where we move on to some new shitstorm of awful.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:46 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Bush. In 2002, Cheney was President for a couple of hours while Bush had a colonoscopy.


I was about to write, Christ can you imagine Dick Cheney as President. Then I remembered reality. Then I thought, Cheney would actually be getting shit done. Then I felt better for a second. Then I was still not consoled.
posted by Rumple at 12:49 PM on October 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

"Dick Cheney; some say the most powerful President — I mean Vice President — in US history. A guy so charismatic he could shoot a man in the face with a shotgun — and have that guy apologize to him."—Will Ferrell, You're Welcome America
posted by Melismata at 12:51 PM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

I wonder how much of the weird secrecy about the botched operation is his handlers desperately trying to avoid a situation where Trump has to utter the word Niger
posted by theodolite at 12:56 PM on October 23, 2017 [108 favorites]

> He invoked the transfer twice, in 2002 and in 2007, first for a colonoscopy and the second time for a follow-up examination.

But did they ever find his brain
posted by Westringia F. at 1:06 PM on October 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

“Leaked White House Memo Outlines Plans For All-Out War On Women’s Health - The memo reads like a wish-list straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale. “

Now would be an awesome moment for one of these Democratic billionaires to BUY AN IUD PATENT AND A BIRTH CONTROL PILL PATENT and set up an endowment to provide them free of charge to all women who don't otherwise have access to birth control, because clearly we can't rely on the government to guarantee our access to necessary medical care.


I do want to clarify one point, however: “Used widely among Catholics and other socially conservative Christians, fertility awareness”

98% of Catholic women of childbearing age in the US use or have used artificial contraception (the kind that's a sin). “Fertility awareness” and/or the rhythm method are not “used widely.” A vanishingly tiny minority of American Catholics practice it. It's a tactical error to write off Catholics on birth control, or to pretend the hierarchy has any control on this issue. IGNORE AND DON'T ENGAGE with any “but what about the Catholics?” stuff; it's false and a distraction, and an attempt to tie Catholics more tightly to conservative Evangelicals, to mobilize anti-abortion Catholics for the entire Evangelical agenda. That tactic has, so far, failed, but the right wing BADLY wants left-wingers to ignore the 60 million US Catholics (of whom 58.8 million are down with birth control) who are potential allies in this fight. The Catholic hierarchy insists on fighting birth control, over and over, but American Catholics are overwhelmingly in favor of artificial birth control, and most Catholic institutions find workarounds to get birth control to their employees and/or to prescribe it in their hospitals. So don't help right-wingers draw the Catholic bloc towards them; pay attention not so much to what the hierarchy says, but to what polls and surveys tell us Catholics actually do (use birth control!) and believe (it's not a problem).
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:25 PM on October 23, 2017 [86 favorites]

It's hard to know if Trump is likely to mispronounce the country's name... but I pray to God nobody on his staff has been stupid enough to specifically tell him not to say it like that.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:30 PM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Leading Russian journalist [Tatyana Feldenhauer] stabbed in neck by intruder inside Moscow radio station

Just another day in Moscow for journalism. After listening to Masha Gesson's warnings last week about Trump's contempt for the media, and the parallels with American and Russian autocracy, it makes me wonder how long until this is just another day in the US.
posted by adept256 at 1:34 PM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

The Atlantic, Molly Ball, On Safari in Trump's America: "The country’s elites are desperate to figure out what they got wrong in 2016. But can they handle the truth?"

In which Ball follows a team of center-left Third Way researchers to post-election focus groups in Wisconsin, and largely concludes they were just out to prove themselves right all along.
posted by zachlipton at 1:34 PM on October 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

In which Ball follows a team of center-left Third Way researchers to post-election focus groups in Wisconsin, and largely concludes they were just out to prove themselves right all along.

We're going to get Bowles-Simpson 2.0 as the grand plan to defeat Trump unless we make something different happen.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:47 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

In my ideal world well we wouldn't have twitter but if we did, people who actually had substantive things to say would type up their essay and put it on to one of the many free or low-cost places on the Internet to put texts. (I think they're generally called 'blogs'?) Then they could tweet-storm or tweet-tsunami or tweet-meteor to their heart's content, just putting a link to the full text in the first tweet thereof.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:50 PM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

It's hard to know if Trump is likely to mispronounce the country's name... but I pray to God nobody on his staff has been stupid enough to specifically tell him not to say it like that.

They just have to figure out a way to casually say it a lot. "The country's chief exports are raw materials," says Wikipedia. "Especially uranium ore."

Great. Why were they there again?
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:50 PM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Key senators say they didn't know US had troops in Niger."

Yeeeeesh
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:52 PM on October 23, 2017 [17 favorites]

> Pentagon just announced that Gen. Dunford will brief press at 4 p.m. about operations in Niger, where four U.S. soldiers were killed.

C-SPAN link (just wrapped up).
posted by christopherious at 1:52 PM on October 23, 2017

That Third Way bit would seem to show that if a voter is single issue, they are unreachable. The union guys who voted in Walker out of spite and a love for the guns they could already buy? I would say it's fucking unbelievable but that's... what, five years past?

That Third Way then turned around and spun this into a reason to continue existing is a little disheartening. That the people lobbying the party aren't grounded in the reality they're purporting to bring us back to doesn't inspire much confidence.
posted by Slackermagee at 1:53 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

That Third Way then turned around and spun this into a reason to continue existing is a little disheartening.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
-Upton Sinclair, 1935

posted by Justinian at 2:05 PM on October 23, 2017 [16 favorites]

I'm pleading again, please please PLEASE stop posting entire Twit threads or multiple paragraphs of articles you've linked to - you rapidly make this thread difficult to load for some of us.

I thought we were supposed to do this as context-less links are frowned upon...? And didn't the mods say in one of the MeTas that it's the number of comments (rather than the length of individual comments) that clogs up loading?
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 2:10 PM on October 23, 2017 [25 favorites]

The man's awfulness aside, it is weird that Sgt. Johnson's file apparently wasn't on his desk when he called her. I assume that wouldn't be some breach of protocol. Maybe Samantha Bee was onto something with her facetious #TrumpCantRead conspiracy theory?

No. Samantha Bee was dead-on with her assessment. Trump may have been an illiterate idiot before becoming senile, but these days he literally can't do anything but follow a script. WHEN he can follow the script.

Having at-hand a file of facts that need to be assembled into a coherent whole, and used in an honest-sympathetic way?

Not on President Trump's watch!
posted by mikelieman at 2:12 PM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Like Third Way, I too wish I could still see the world through the innocent eyes of a child.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:12 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln
posted by adept256 at 2:15 PM on October 23, 2017 [48 favorites]

I don't think Trump could even believably get through "Dear Madam".
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:18 PM on October 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

BuzzFeed reporting that James Comey has verified his secret account (with Benjamin Wittes now confirming.)
posted by Room 641-A at 2:18 PM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Lawmakers urge reversal after financier [Browder] says visa revoked, Mary Clare Jalonick and Tom Lobianco, AP/WaPo

Browder said he believes his visa was revoked by “an automatic process” in the U.S., and he doesn’t think this was an active attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to bar him from entering.

“The real tests will be how quickly DHS cleans this up,” Browder said, referring to the Department of Homeland Security...

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote the Magnitsky Act. The two senators said Monday that Browder is a “strong advocate for anti-corruption efforts” and Homeland Security should immediately review the decision...

In a separate letter, New York Rep. Eliot Engel urged the State Department to reverse the decision. Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Trump administration is playing into Putin’s hands.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 2:19 PM on October 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

Josh Marshall: Toward an Identity and Vocabulary of Civic Freedom for The Trump Era

What has occurred to me with growing intensity in recent months is that we do not have a public language and sense of political identity tied to civic freedom. [...] They say that a fish doesn’t know it’s in water because it doesn’t know anything but water. Similarly there are many basic values and assumptions I think as Americans we barely know and have seldom needed to state support for explicitly because they have been so assumed. We can’t assume those things any more.

posted by RedOrGreen at 2:29 PM on October 23, 2017 [33 favorites]

Leading Russian journalist [Tatyana Feldenhauer] stabbed in neck by intruder inside Moscow radio station

American NewsMedia and Russian NewsMedia are now, for all practical purposes, Goofus and Gallant.

American Media says "My job is hard. If I tell the truth or investigate stories, I might lose access...to meals at nice restaurants and cosmetic treatments that I can expense."

American Media goes out and acts as stenographer and amplifier for Trump administration and its spokespersons.

American Media gives itself awards at the end of the year for its "hard-hitting" stories.

Russian Media says "My job is hard. If I tell the truth or investigate stories, my life is at risk."

Russian Media goes out and investigates stories and tells the truth about Putin and his cronies and deals.

Russian Media is threatened, beaten, imprisoned and murdered.

American Media cries and complains when Trump berates them.

Russian Media continues to try to do its goddamn job despite Putin's reprisals.

American Media still doesn't realize that no matter how much they kiss Trump's ass, most of them are still going to be among the first up against the wall when the Republicans say "Fuck it" and drop all pretense of rule of law.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:30 PM on October 23, 2017 [31 favorites]

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

Fun fact - only two of Mrs. Bixby's sons actually died in battle. One deserted, two were captured.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:33 PM on October 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

"He's a cruel man, but fair." [fake]
posted by Sys Rq at 11:49 AM on October 23 [6 favorites +] [!]

From a comment on TPM quoting Monte Python:

Interviewer: I've been told Dinsdale Piranha nailed your head to the floor.

Stig: No. Never. He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that. He was like a brother to me.

Interviewer: But the police have film of Dinsdale actually nailing your head to the floor.

Stig: (pause) Oh yeah, he did that.

Interviewer: Why?

Stig: Well he had to, didn't he? I mean there was nothing else he could do, be fair. I had transgressed the unwritten law.

Interviewer: What had you done?

Stig: Er... well he didn't tell me that, but he gave me his word that it was the case, and that's good enough for me with old Dinsy. I mean, he didn't want to nail my head to the floor. I had to insist. He wanted to let me off. He'd do anything for you, Dinsdale would.

Interviewer: And you don't bear him a grudge?

Stig: A grudge! Old Dinsy. He was a real darling.

posted by Mental Wimp at 2:38 PM on October 23, 2017 [15 favorites]

Fun fact - only two of Mrs. Bixby's sons actually died in battle. One deserted, two were captured.

Dear Madam,

In contrast to my last letter to you, I have been informed that only two of your sons paid that terrible price for the good of the nation. One of them, faithless coward that he is, left the field of Mars, abandoning his brothers both in blood and arms. Two of your sons fought valiantly but were taken alive by the rebels, so we will count that as one glorious death between the two of them.

While what small and forgettable consolation I was able to give you, I pray you still accept at a rate of six parts in ten. For the half of your two captured sons that we do not count dead I can only offer you my most profound shrug, and please tell your good-for-nothing coward of a son to call on me in Washington, as the pater of this great nation I would thrash some sense into him.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln
posted by The Gaffer at 2:41 PM on October 23, 2017 [31 favorites]

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dunford discusses deaths of U.S. troops in Niger (PBS News Hour video/streaming)
live updates and summaries from CBS News

-----
Trump’s ‘traitor’ rhetoric looms over Bowe Bergdahl’s sentencing, Alex Horton, WaPo
Trump's Comments Under Consideration During Bergdahl Sentencing Hearing, Merrit Kennedy, NPR

At a sentencing hearing Monday, [military judge] Army Col. Jeffrey Nance spent the better part of an hour on the subject, reports NPR's Greg Myre, following a renewed motion by the defense to dismiss because of comments by Trump that could constitute "undue command influence" on the court-martial.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 2:41 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Everyone got their surprised face ready?

Massive security risks discovered in Kris Kobach’s voter registration database (Kira Lerner, Think Progress)

Administrators of the voter registration database used by 32 states and run by Kris Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and the co-chair of President Trump’s Commission on Voter Integrity, are emailing passwords and using unencrypted servers, according to newly released documents. These basic security vulnerabilities are leaving sensitive voter information open to the public and potentially hackers

posted by Room 641-A at 2:46 PM on October 23, 2017 [45 favorites]

That article about Third Way really angries up the blood. It's a surefire recipe to keep losing because pro-capitalism liberals would rather be comfortable than move even a millimeter to the left.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 2:49 PM on October 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

Administrators of the voter registration database used by 32 states and run by Kris Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and the co-chair of President Trump’s Commission on Voter Integrity, are emailing passwords and using unencrypted servers, according to newly released documents.

ONLY
THE
BEST
PEOPLE
posted by hanov3r at 2:49 PM on October 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

The murder suspect Trump invoked to build a wall goes on trial today, Catherine E. Shoichet, Dan Simon, and Tal Kopan, CNN

Kate Steinle's killing inspired an immigration bill while President Donald Trump and other Republicans have invoked her name in decrying sanctuary cities and promoting the construction of a border wall...

Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the second-degree murder trial of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented Mexican immigrant accused of repeatedly entering the United States illegally.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 2:51 PM on October 23, 2017

The murder suspect Trump invoked to build a wall goes on trial today

Jury selection apparently involved an extended discussion as to whether jurors would give a verdict even if it would make the President angry, if you want a feel for how much of a mess he's caused in this case.
posted by zachlipton at 2:54 PM on October 23, 2017 [32 favorites]

That article about Third Way really angries up the blood. It's a surefire recipe to keep losing because pro-capitalism liberals would rather be comfortable than move even a millimeter to the left.

leave it to the dnc to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
posted by entropicamericana at 2:55 PM on October 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Lest we get too centered on what our senile hatemonger-in-chief says, it is worth pointing out that Kate Steinle's family have been vocally opposed to the politicization of the circumstances surrounding her death - particularly criticizing the president for invoking her name and story without ever having reached out to her family to express his condolences.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 3:00 PM on October 23, 2017 [36 favorites]

Neither the emperor, nor his followers, are wearing any fucking clothes, and theyre running around trying to convince us nudity is best.

Politico's Seung Min Kim (@Seungminkim) on twitter: "Asked for his position on CSR deal, @JohnCornyn responds: 'I'm with the president.' I asked where Trump is and Cornyn throws hands in air" 10/23/17 5:38 pm
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 3:08 PM on October 23, 2017 [18 favorites]

Re: Browder

Putin critic cleared to travel, Morgan Chalfant, The Hill
Trump administration says it is not barring Putin critic from U.S., Nahal Toosi, Politico
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 3:19 PM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

leave it to the dnc to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

.... or defeat from the jaws of defeat
posted by Rumple at 3:22 PM on October 23, 2017

Politico's Seung Min Kim (@Seungminkim) on twitter: "Asked for his position on CSR deal, @JohnCornyn responds: 'I'm with the president.' I asked where Trump is and Cornyn throws hands in air"

That's some bold leadership. Texas must be proud.
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:29 PM on October 23, 2017 [12 favorites]

On the topic of Democratic campaign strategy and fundraising, an interesting pair of Politico articles from the last couple days:

Yesterday: DNC enters 2018 in cash panic
Today: Democrats’ early money haul stuns GOP
posted by contraption at 3:42 PM on October 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

More Sleeze.
Trump sought dissident's expulsion after hand-delivered letter from China – report
Wall Street Journal says the US president called for Guo Wengui’s deportation after casino owner Steve Wynn brought letter from Beijing government.
posted by adamvasco at 3:44 PM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's hard to know if Trump is likely to mispronounce the country's name...

"Our soliders were bravely fighting terrorism in Ni[ringing bell]"
posted by rhizome at 3:45 PM on October 23, 2017 [23 favorites]

So. I don't know if we love or hate Eric Garland in here, but if you broaden your vision a tad beyond the current abysmalfest in the US, this giant twitter thread he posted may contain seeds for survival. Toward the end of the thread:

I think, when all is said and done, a combination of wealth concentration and global corruption gave some elites a very crazy plan.......it's on all of us going forward to defend democracy....
posted by yoga at 3:47 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Trump sought dissident's expulsion after hand-delivered letter from China – report
Wall Street Journal says the US president called for Guo Wengui’s deportation after casino owner Steve Wynn brought letter from Beijing government.

I feel safer already.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:48 PM on October 23, 2017

Yesterday: DNC enters 2018 in cash panic
Today: Democrats’ early money haul stuns GOP

These are both good things. The DNC is fucking broken and not worth supporting. After some initial optimism, Perez has seemingly done nothing except consolidate power and freeze out progressive voices. All the Perez critics appear to have been right. It should've been Ellison, or at least not Perez. The entire central party structure and every person that touched the Clinton campaign (No, not the voters or supporters or volunteers, the actual paid professional and consultant class responsible for messaging and strategy, and to a lesser extent, policy) have to be purged and replaced, or the entire structure raised to the ground and rebuilt.

At the same time, individual candidates are worth supporting. Even if they're not progressive lions that check every little Berniebox. I'd much rather see things like Act Blue, Swing Left, Indivisible and individual campaigns and candidates get that money than throw it away on a centralized group of professionals who've internalized and perfected getting themselves paid while losing Democratic campaigns.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:53 PM on October 23, 2017 [36 favorites]

raised to the ground

"Dig up!" [obligatory]
posted by perspicio at 4:02 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

So. I don't know if we love or hate Eric Garland in here, but if you broaden your vision a tad beyond the current abysmalfest in the US, this giant twitter thread he posted may contain seeds for survival.

Thank God this corporate motivational speaker and craft-beer enthusiast has uncovered the vast Russian conspiracy to turn Americans against constitutional government in order to prevent alternative energy from pushing oil off the market, which everyone knows was inevitable in a country that hates oil as much as the United States does.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:17 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Ellison is doing a lot of activity outside of his (probably mostly symbolic) job in the DNC. So there is definitely life outside the DNC; even Joe Biden has endorsed the same Virginia candidates as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (I'm on their email list, among other interesting lists). Alabama and Roy Moore may be out of reach, but the whole VA House of Delagates is very promising. Of course, there is the question of how much fear we SHOULD put in the hearts of the Trumpists, Kochs and other Evildoers this early...
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:17 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

They need to start stepping it up for McCaskill
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:22 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

According to Newsweek, Trump wanted to change the name of Denali back to Mt. McKinley.

After the workers seize the means of production and smash fascism, could all Trump properties please be renamed after Native American monsters and demons? Wendigo Tower, Pukwudgie-a-Lago, etc?
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:27 PM on October 23, 2017 [80 favorites]

After the workers seize the means of production and smash fascism. . . .

I had to pause right there for a few moments of Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker fanfic daydreaming.

Also, I nominate Yakwahe National golf course Park in New Jersey.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:40 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Trump has sent the $25K personal check to Dillon Baldridge's father, along with a letter blaming his lawyer for the delay. The check is dated the same day as the Washington Post story about how he didn't send it.
posted by zachlipton at 4:54 PM on October 23, 2017 [61 favorites]

along with a letter blaming his lawyer for the delay

"My lawyer kept telling me that, legally, I really shouldn't be doing this and your son's wish, obviously, was that his benefits should go to his mother but I finally decided that, hey, I'm the President and I can totally do this if I want." [probably mostly fake]
posted by hanov3r at 4:59 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted; if anyone's curious what people in this thread thought about messaging in the 2016 campaign, I know a hundred or so previous threads where you can read about it in excruciating repetitive detail.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:07 PM on October 23, 2017 [37 favorites]

Trump has sent the $25K personal check to Dillon Baldridge's father

Wait, is this our big chance to get him for check fraud? Get that thing deposited now.
posted by asperity at 5:15 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

On the Cy Vance front

Waging A Write In Campaign the Brain Lemer Show
posted by The Whelk at 5:17 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Iowa Withdraws Request to Leave Obamacare Market, Abby Goodnough, NYT

With just over a week until the Affordable Care Act’s enrollment season begins, Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa said Monday that she had withdrawn the state’s request to opt out of the law’s insurance marketplace next year by offering customers a single plan with lower premiums and a high deductible.

The waiver request had been closely watched by health policy experts as the most far-reaching effort by a state to sidestep requirements of Obamacare. Governor Reynolds, a Republican, said the Trump administration had tried hard to approve it, but had found it impossible to do so without violating the terms of the law.

posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 5:19 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Massive security risks discovered in Kris Kobach’s voter registration database (Kira Lerner, Think Progress)

The call is coming from inside the database!
posted by p3t3 at 5:23 PM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

BuzzFeed, The Trump Administration Just Settled More Than A Dozen Lawsuits Over Obama’s Contraception Mandate

According to a DOJ official, the settlement agreements state that the Obama administration broke the law by violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The agreements cite recent guidances and executive orders from the Trump administration that say federal officials will “vigorously enforce” protections of religious freedom. Under the terms of the settlements, the government will not require the plaintiffs to pay for, or even communicate about paying for, contraception.

The Trump administration also agreed to pay for at least part of the challengers’ legal fees and costs. The Justice Department declined to specify how much money would be paid out.

Jones Day represents 15 of the 17 plaintiffs.

Bloomberg, reports thatBannon Backs Isolation of Qatar, Comparing Threat to North Korea. This comes as McClatchy reports on Steve Bannon’s already murky Middle East ties deepen, about how the UAE is paying $330K to SCL Social Limited, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica for an anti-Qatar social media campaign. Bannon was supposed to have sold his stake in Cambridge Analytica when he joined the White House, but never filed the paperwork stating he did so. And much more inside on what Bannon has been up to in the middle east, as he reportedly continues to talk frequently with Trump.
posted by zachlipton at 5:24 PM on October 23, 2017 [21 favorites]

I don't understand, that article seems to suggest the settlements protect from any future law that is similar? Is this like some weird double jeopardy thing I was previously unaware of?
posted by corb at 5:45 PM on October 23, 2017

Trump wanted to change the name of Denali back to Mt. McKinley.

i say that's awfully disrespectful of president william denali
posted by pyramid termite at 5:57 PM on October 23, 2017 [12 favorites]

Tony Abbott's bizarre 28 second silence following "Shit Happens" comment

Back in 2011, then Prime Minister Tony Abbot was caught on a hot mic saying 'shit happens' after being told the circumstances leading to a soldiers death, by another soldier. When a journalist confronts him with this, for 28 excruciating seconds, he is silent. You can hear the gears turning, he must say something, but he cannot apologize. He finally says 'I've given you the answer you deserve'.

This is Trump. He cannot apologize. EVER. Even when it's the most obvious thing to do. Look at the video, he's like a robot whose code is stuck in a terminal loop.

Tony is every bit as reprehensible as Trump, but I can offer you one ray of hope. Abbot was removed form office by his own party.
posted by adept256 at 6:11 PM on October 23, 2017 [40 favorites]

Yes, but Abbott's Labor party had a trace of humanity left in it, unlike today's Republican party.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:16 PM on October 23, 2017 [15 favorites]

Yes, but Abbott's Labor party had a trace of humanity left in it, unlike today's Republican party.

Abbott is a member of the Liberal Party which is in coalition with the Nationals, thus the LNP. Oh, and there is no humanity left in the LNP either. Just take a look at likes of Dutton and Morrison. They aspire to be as craven as the Republicans.
posted by michswiss at 6:25 PM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Point taken, but Abbott is in the Liberal Party. Labor is left where Liberal is right down here. He is also still in government as a backbencher and frequently speaks trumpisms from back there.
posted by adept256 at 6:26 PM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

My mistake, mistook him for a former UK PM; Mods, please wipe this from the face of the earth...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:34 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Sorry but this is Trump playing Tee ball with the tax cut republicans. They put this big fat ball on the Tee for him so he could knock it off.

There is by this point zero indication that Paul Ryan is remotely this strategic,

And negative zero indication Trump can or will follow a script like that.
posted by phearlez at 6:42 PM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

bizarre 28 second silence following "Shit Happens" comment

Despite this quite informative description, I still wasn't prepared for just how bizarre the 28 second silence really was.
posted by yhbc at 6:52 PM on October 23, 2017 [12 favorites]

"You're not saying anything, Tony." Literal LOL. Come on, man, don't taunt the frozen robot. It's mean.
posted by ctmf at 7:07 PM on October 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

fluttering hellfire: "They need to start stepping it up for McCaskill"

Sure, but they're probably focused for the moment on the elections that are in two weeks, and less so on the ones 54 weeks out.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:13 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Trump has sent the $25K personal check to Dillon Baldridge's father

"Is it just me or does his signature scream serial killer?"
posted by kirkaracha at 7:23 PM on October 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Of course it was 'shit happens' that ended up as Abbott's downfall and not the shameful crapfest regarding Julia Gillard...THAT ended up with her retiring from politics and him eventually being PM.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:24 PM on October 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

JFC

“Where’s the letter that Steve brought?” Mr. Trump called to his secretary. “We need to get this criminal out of the country,” Mr. Trump said, according to the people. Aides assumed the letter, which was brought into the Oval Office, might reference a Chinese national in trouble with U.S. law enforcement, the people said.

The letter, in fact, was from the Chinese government, urging the U.S. to return Mr. Guo to China.

The document had been presented to Mr. Trump at a recent private dinner at the White House, the people said. It was hand-delivered to the president by Mr. Wynn, the Republican National Committee finance chairman, whose Macau casino empire cannot operate without a license from the Chinese territory.

I'm not into the whole spy shit but 101 is YOU DON'T GIVE BACK PEOPLE WHO POTENTIALLY HAVE VALUABLE INFORMATION ON YOUR RIVALS YOU DOTARD.
posted by Talez at 7:30 PM on October 23, 2017 [17 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- Texas Dems optimistic about picking up some seats. [The Hill]

-- As linked upthread, another article on prodigious Dem candidate fundraising in Q3. To give a bit of detail: 31 GOP incumbents were outraised by a Dem challenger, 8 more were outraised by the Dem field as a whole, 4 GOP open seats where the Dems raised more, plus 12 more where the Dem fundraising was just a bit less than the GOP.

Obviously, there isn't a one-to-one correspondence between funds and victory, but it does show that a serious race will be waged. These are also the kinds of signs that lead incumbents to decide not to run again.

** PA-18 special -- General election for filling the Tim Murphy seat will be March 13th. No firm date on when we'll have candidates - parties are selecting them directly, rather than holding a primary - but should be in the next month or so.

** VA gov -- Interesting tidbit from the DNC meetings: Perez said that the DNC has put 7 figures into backing Northam; none of it went to TV, all of it for getting out the vote. My personal analysis is that this is exactly right.

** VA House of Delegates:

-- Updated take on that DKE analysis. 2 seats move a notch right; 6 move a notch left.

-- Very lengthy, detailed look from Sabato at the House races. He punts a bit by saying that results will be strongly correlated with Northam's results, which duh.

Odds & ends -- California GOP is a total disaster area and has no plans for getting themselves out of it. [LAT]


==> Special election tomorrow for Dem-held New Hampshire House Strafford 13.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:36 PM on October 23, 2017 [33 favorites]

Administrators of the voter registration database used by 32 states and run by Kris Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and the co-chair of President Trump’s Commission on Voter Integrity, are emailing passwords and using unencrypted servers

Wow. That's especially, flagrantly egregious. Can't wait for those 32 states' worth of voters to get doxxed, blame the boogeymen du jour and vote for these shamful, arrogant, malevolent shitheads again.

Between the great work the DNC and Das Corporate News is doing, it's a wonder we're not cancelling the votes now. What's the point if Joe Khaki has all the news he needs to make an informed decision! What the fuck is the point of ANYTHING (socially/politically) when these monsters can stay afloat in day after day of these torrential downpours of incompetence?!

Well at least something might be indicated by someone who does a thing we usually know, right WashPo? NYT, CNN, y'all want in on this breaking speculative wishholing? Beats tellin it like it fuckin is, what with everything being Okey-Dokey an- aaaaaigh.

Ah. Ooh I pulled a snark tendon or something.
posted by petebest at 8:37 PM on October 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

VIRGINIA WHEN ARE YOU COMING TO KNOCK DOORS?

(Memail is always open, y'all. We already have one True American Hero from the Blue coming down to Richmond for GOTV, who's next?)
posted by dogheart at 8:41 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

> China’s Pursuit of Fugitive Businessman Guo Wengui Kicks Off Manhattan Caper Worthy of Spy Thriller

> Wall Street Journal says the US president called for Guo Wengui’s deportation after casino owner Steve Wynn brought letter from Beijing government.

This is important. It is a landmark signifying that the United States is now officially a mafia country.

It's not that the eccentric dissident Guo Wengui and the activist Joshua Wong are comparable, but it isn't a coincidence that there is a similarity to what happened in the military junta-ruled Thailand last year. That level of lawlessness and corruption is where the US has landed.

I guess we can #NextThread lalex's (paywalled) WSJ link and adamvasco's Guardian one (non-paywalled).
posted by runcifex at 9:19 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

WaPo, Small Montana firm lands Puerto Rico’s biggest contract to get the power back on

For the sprawling effort to restore Puerto Rico’s crippled electrical grid, the territory’s state-owned utility has turned to a two-year-old company from Montana that had just two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria made landfall.

The company, Whitefish Energy, said last week that it had signed a $300 million contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to repair and reconstruct large portions of the island’s electrical infrastructure. The contract is the biggest yet issued in the troubled relief effort.
...
The power authority, also known as PREPA, opted to hire Whitefish rather than activate the “mutual aid” arrangements it has with other utilities. For many years, such agreements have helped U.S. utilities — including those in Florida and Texas recently — to recover quickly after natural disasters.

That's a little suspicious, right? A small two-year old company from the middle of nowhere in Montana with two employees is in charge of getting electricity back to most of Puerto Rico? Wait. Did you say the middle of nowhere in Montana? I wonder if...

Whitefish Energy is based in Whitefish, Mont., the home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Its chief executive, Andy Techmanski, and Zinke acknowledge knowing one another — but only, Zinke’s office said in an email, because Whitefish is a small town where “everybody knows everybody.” One of Zinke’s sons “joined a friend who worked a summer job” at one of Techmanski’s construction sites, the email said. Whitefish said he worked as a “flagger.”

Zinke’s office said he had no role in Whitefish securing the contract for work in Puerto Rico. Techmanski also said Zinke was not involved.

posted by zachlipton at 9:25 PM on October 23, 2017 [84 favorites]

zachlipton: a two-year-old company from Montana that had just two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria made landfall.

JFC. They gave the contract to his neighborhood electrician.

Meanwhile: tonight doctors in Puerto Rico had to perform surgery lit only by cell phone flashlights.

These fucking ghouls. People are dying and they're handing out contracts like they're party favors.
posted by bluecore at 9:45 PM on October 23, 2017 [63 favorites]

Oh, Whitefish. Known equally for the great skiing, the Puerto Rican reconstruction contracts, the Zinke stompin' grounds, Richard Spencer's parents' properties that he squats in as his home base, the attempted Neo-Nazi armed march last MLK day, and the Amtrak station.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:46 PM on October 23, 2017 [50 favorites]

* VA gov -- Interesting tidbit from the DNC meetings: Perez said that the DNC has put 7 figures into backing Northam; none of it went to TV, all of it for getting out the vote. My personal analysis is that this is exactly right

I concur. If everyone who showed up for HRC votes Northam it’ll be a bloodbath. That won’t happen obviously, because of our stupid off year nonsense and human nature. But there’s probably some advantage to be had in the fact that much of the HRC crowd is here in NoVA and this also happens to be a more politically minded area, given how many folks here work in government.

Apparently we are 70% higher in turnout than this time in 2013. Here’s hoping that means something good.
posted by phearlez at 9:52 PM on October 23, 2017 [19 favorites]

And in utterly trivial news, I’m in the background of a photo in a Berlin newspaper
posted by The Whelk at 9:55 PM on October 23, 2017 [58 favorites]

Apparently we are 70% higher in turnout than this time in 2013. Here’s hoping that means something good.

Maybe? Specific to Virginia, early voting is very limited (absentee and only with a reason), and more broadly, there's a question how much early voting just pulls from folks who would vote anyway on Election Day. But certainly, the more votes we can bank early, the better.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:00 PM on October 23, 2017

Don Lemon's Open Letter to Trump: Please Stop.

Yet another journalist falls into the trap of thinking that saying "Have you no decency, sir?" to Trump will straighten him out and cause him to start acting like a president. Or like a human being.

I am more and more convinced that this kind of talk is just as much a waste of time as an editorial saying "Dear Hurricane Harvey, take a good hard look at yourself and think about the damage you're causing."

This is a disaster and we need to deal with it like a disaster, not like a misbehaving child who needs just the right parental guidance to suddenly become a president.

But it's still a pretty scathing article and I hope Trump reads (or watches) it.
posted by mmoncur at 10:17 PM on October 23, 2017 [41 favorites]

So, this might have been posted and i missed it, but I guess it really is Comey's secret Twitter after all?
posted by elsietheeel at 10:45 PM on October 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

I don't know why people are getting so excited when all he does is post nature pictures and/or himself standing around in nature. It's not like he revealed any secrets or anything.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:48 PM on October 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

But the internet cracked a mystery! It's like Scooby-Doo!

(Scoopy-Doo?)
posted by elsietheeel at 11:00 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Whitefish Energy is based in Whitefish, Mont., the home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Its chief executive, Andy Techmanski [...]

Go home scriptwriters, you're drunk.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:14 AM on October 24, 2017 [59 favorites]

I was curious about the headline in The Whelk's photobomb. Google translate:

"We love socialism"
In the United States, the Democratic Socialists are making a mass movement
posted by adept256 at 2:52 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

and FYI, a little deeper in the WaPo story that zachlipton posted:

NBC Montana quoted Techmanski in a report Oct. 1 as saying he had asked Zinke for help in getting personnel and equipment to the territory. Chiames, the Whitefish spokesman, confirmed that “Once the company got the go-ahead from PREPA on September 26 to begin work, company executives did reach out to contacts in case they could help expedite getting qualified linesmen to the island.”

Zinke’s office said: “The Secretary always politely listens when citizens and the small business community approach him with concerns and ideas. Neither the Secretary nor anyone in his office have taken any meetings or action on behalf of this company.”

to clarify:
paragraphs 11-12: it's just a coincidence, we barely know each other
paragraphs 30-31: we needed help so of course we reached out to our hometown buddy

no meetings or action, huh? right. if you believe that, I've got a $300M nationwide electrical grid contract to sell you.
posted by martin q blank at 4:10 AM on October 24, 2017 [37 favorites]

FWIW, some folks I know went from NYC down to Fairfax, Va to do some door-to-door canvassing for Northam last weekend, and were surprised that their list had a lot of Republicans on it. They said they got the door slammed in their face once, but otherwise most were polite but noncommittal.
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:34 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Let's Scream Helplessly At the Sky on Nov 8 2017, shall we?

I don't do facebook but this is from this NBC Boston article:

An event being advertised on Facebook urges people to gather on the Boston Common on Nov. 8, 2017 to "scream helplessly at the sky" on the anniversary of last year's election.
The event is slated for 6 p.m. Nearly 4,000 people have already RSVP'd and 30,000 more say they're interested.
"Come express your anger at the current state of democracy, and scream helplessly at the sky," the Facebook event reads.

posted by yoga at 5:36 AM on October 24, 2017 [35 favorites]

> Let's Scream Helplessly At the Sky on Nov 8 2017, shall we?

Are the writers of 2017 are just shamelessly copping from Welcome to Night Vale now?
posted by klarck at 5:46 AM on October 24, 2017 [30 favorites]

"Is it just me or does his signature scream serial killer?"

We've discussed my lunch with Donald Trump over his desk at Trump Tower, but I don't think I've ever mentioned the bizarre gift he gave me at its conclusion: a Sharpie-signed copy of TRUMP: THE GAME, a pathetic, vanity-branded Monopoly knockoff.

What leapt out at me immediately was that his signature looked like nothing so much as a field of daggers. It reminded me of Heinrich Himmler's, in point of fact.
posted by adamgreenfield at 5:57 AM on October 24, 2017 [22 favorites]

Trump: Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts....
Corker: Same untruths from an utterly untruthful president. #AlertTheDaycareStaff

Meeeow!
posted by PenDevil at 5:58 AM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

I don't know why people are getting so excited when all he does is post nature pictures and/or himself standing around in nature.

I think people got excited because it was Comey in Iowa, and people just assumed that he was exploring a run for office instead of attending his father-in-law's 90th birthday.
posted by gladly at 6:03 AM on October 24, 2017

Now I'm curious about how anem0ne is viewing and posting comments to this website.
posted by contraption at 6:33 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Now I'm curious about how anem0ne is viewing and posting comments to this website.

SeaMonkey?
posted by hangashore at 6:37 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Meeeow!

Before Trump's tweets attacking him, Corker was tearing into him on CBS This Morning and ABC with George Stephanopoulos.

@kylegriffin1
Corker: Presidents should "try to bring the country together...not to debase our country—and that has not happened." VIDEO
- Corker: "It appears to be the governing model of this White House to purposefully divide."
- Corker: Trump should leave the tax reform bill to committees. stop 'taking things off the table.'
- Corker on Trump and North Korea: "I would just like for him to leave it to the professionals for a while."
- Q: Any second thoughts on adult day care center, WWIII comments? Corker: "No, George, I don't make comments that I haven't thought about."
posted by chris24 at 6:37 AM on October 24, 2017 [37 favorites]

Are the writers of 2017 are just shamelessly copping from Welcome to Night Vale now?

Those interested in volunteering should stand in their bathtubs and weep until it is all gone. Nothing left. You can let go now. Let go. Shhhh. Let go.

The President offered no comment - only a low moaning and gelatinous quiver.

...yeah, checks out. We'll know for sure if Tom Brady grows a second head.
posted by delfin at 6:42 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

"Come express your anger at the current state of democracy, and scream helplessly at the sky," the Facebook event reads.

I wouldn't give Trump or the GOP the satisfaction.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:52 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

It looks like the FCC will kill net neutrality over Thanksgiving
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:03 AM on October 24, 2017 [18 favorites]

Corker just went off on Trump in an impromptu interview with CNN:

In an interview with CNN in a Senate hallway shortly after the tweets, Corker escalated his criticism, calling him a serial liar, saying he regretted supporting him for president, accusing him of debasing the country and refusing to say whether he trusted Trump with the U.S. nuclear codes.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:07 AM on October 24, 2017 [30 favorites]

this thread is so long, my phone won’t let me add the link to my previous comment. just one data-point.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:08 AM on October 24, 2017

I've been screaming since last November 8. Only 3 years, 2 months and 27 days to go.
posted by adept256 at 7:09 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

I don't know why people are getting so excited when all he does is post nature pictures and/or himself standing around in nature.

It was this tweet, a picture of Little Round Top, Gettysburg, with the caption: Little Round Top, Gettysburg. Good place to think about leadership and values and this tweet, a picture of West Point, which people are connecting to Benedict Arnold.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:12 AM on October 24, 2017

> Corker just went off on Trump in an impromptu interview with CNN:

Imagine if Corker were in a position to do something to back up his words -- like if he were a member of a legislative body that relies on unanimous consent.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:16 AM on October 24, 2017 [68 favorites]

So you're telling me Corker has concerns?
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

@grahamorama
Kid Rock on Stern: "F--- no I'm not running for Senate, are you f---ing kidding me? Who couldn't figure that out?" So that settles that.

---

Well, it seems McConnell & Co couldn't. The modern GOP, excited for fucking Kid Rock, unable to tell he's trolling.

The Hill - Aug. 11: Head of McConnell-backed PAC: We're 'very interested' in Kid Rock Senate campaign
posted by chris24 at 7:19 AM on October 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

Oh boy, Corker really has Donny worked up. We're up to 5 tweets. The latest:

@realDonaldTrump:
Sen. Corker is the incompetent head of the Foreign Relations Committee, & look how poorly the U.S. has done. He doesn't have a clue as.....
...the entire World WAS laughing and taking advantage of us. People like liddle' Bob Corker have set the U.S. way back. Now we move forward!

---

If Corker pushes him into an aneurysm, I'll be willing to call him a hero.
posted by chris24 at 7:24 AM on October 24, 2017 [58 favorites]

"Is it just me or does his signature scream serial killer?"

Melania has the same signature.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:26 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

liddle' Bob Corker

ok this is maybe bitch-eating-crackers territory here but BY GOD WHAT IS THAT APOSTROPHE FOR?
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:26 AM on October 24, 2017 [53 favorites]

Has Trump ever tweeted 5 straight times on a single topic? This level of focus is fairly impressive (given the sub-basement standards he has set thus far).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:28 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Has Trump ever tweeted 5 straight times on a single topic?

black or brown people who wronged him
women who wronged him
white men who are race/gender traitors

etc.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:30 AM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

Just a reminder that 9/10 times you think Trump is tweeting it's probably Scavino.
posted by PenDevil at 7:31 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Donny and Melania's signatures on the same letter.

I wonder what they'd look like if they were signed in ballpoint rather than a Sharpie.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:31 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Andy Techmanski = mild mannered dweeb
is
Tech-Man = costumed hero who techs the tech
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:32 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

ok this is maybe bitch-eating-crackers territory here but BY GOD WHAT IS THAT APOSTROPHE FOR?

Mu guess is he's seen it used with "lil" and thinks you use apostrophes on slang/colloquialisms.
posted by chris24 at 7:36 AM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

Those signatures are so weird. As a person with a long name who also has to sign it a lot in my current job, it's completely counterintuitive to me that someone would go to that much trouble to ADD a whole bunch of penstrokes and time to their signature.

The normal tendency over time is to decrease changes of direction and elide several letters into a single line or wiggly scrawl.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:37 AM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

Just a note to say that as a disabled woman who works at a college, I am so angry at Betsy DeVos, I want to lock her in a closet with nothing but the knowledge but how awful a person she is for the rest of her life. I want to devise some sort of punishment like the Greek Gods did when a mortal really pissed them off. Like I don't know what could be held above her head out of reach that would be the most poetic torment for her, but I am pushing for that thing.
posted by angrycat at 7:37 AM on October 24, 2017 [70 favorites]

Just a reminder that 9/10 times you think Trump is tweeting it's probably Scavino.

While that is probably true it still strange that it is a series of 5 tweets over a period of 127 minutes. What is the dynamic there? Is Scavino completely freelancing? Is Trump checking back in every commercial break to demand another tweet? What is on his calendar for this morning?

Speaking of his calendar, he is scheduled to have lunch with Congress today. This is shaping up to be a more awkward than usual meeting and I have to believe that anything and everything unhinged in the meeting will leak.
posted by mmascolino at 7:38 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

As somebody who handles mail merges for her job, the sloppiness of that letter BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ME. Why are they "Humane Society" in the greeting, but "The Humane Society" down below? Why is nation capitalized? If both Melania and Donald signed, why is his name the only one in the letterhead? What fucking weird-ass margins did they decide to use? Who the fuck made the decision to have the signatures in black ink?

*AGGRESSIVELY COMPLAINS ABOUT CRACKER-EATING ON DECK OF TITANIC AS ICEBERG LOOMS FROM EAST AND A PLANET-SIZED METEOR APPEARS IN THE WEST*
posted by joyceanmachine at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2017 [58 favorites]

Like I don't know what could be held above her head out of reach that would be the most poetic torment for her, but I am pushing for that thing.

Jar of Miracle Whip?
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh boy, Corker really has Donny worked up.

oh that lunch today is gonna be awesome. not my birthday but I'd gladly swap all of next year's presents plus one kidney for a leaked recording from that room.
posted by martin q blank at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Donald Trump eats crackers like a dog.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:40 AM on October 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

From the Don Lemon piece linked by mmoncur, addressed to DJT: I know you have children -- and two daughters. Can you imagine Ivanka or Tiffany in Myeshia's shoes?

Way too easy to picture Trump replying "Ivanka or... who?"
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:41 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

While that is probably true it still strange that it is a series of 5 tweets over a period of 127 minutes. What is the dynamic there?

It takes him time to translate Russian.
posted by adept256 at 7:41 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

"Random" apostrophes, quotes, etc. from Trump. Part of a secret code?
posted by zakur at 7:43 AM on October 24, 2017

I'm sorry, but this Puerto Rico story is leaving me incandescent with rage.

Maybe it's just because I know people on the island, and the Arecibo Observatory is now a center for FEMA aid distribution, and colleagues who have had no power or running water for a month now are flying their families and pets to the mainland because they have the resources, unlike the vast majority of the island residents. But I cannot believe that a US territory is just being consigned to the middle ages like this.

And meanwhile, that linked WaPo article - Puerto Rico’s unusual $300 million deal with Montana firm draws scrutiny:

The Whitefish Energy contract with Puerto Rico’s state-owned utility is the biggest one yet to repair the territory’s crippled electrical grid after Hurricane Maria. The two-year-old company, which had just two full-time employees when the storm hit, has 280 workers on the island.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:43 AM on October 24, 2017 [53 favorites]

Corker from the top rope!

@JohnBerman
BREAKING: @SenBobCorker unloads on @realDonaldTrump to @mkraju. "The debasement of our nation is what he will be remembered most for."

@ryanstruyk
.@mkraju: "Do you think [Trump] is a role model to children in the United States?"
@SenBobCorker: "No."
Raju: "You don't?"
Corker: "No. Absolutely not."

@ryanstruyk
.@SenBobCorker tells @mkraju he's concerned about Trump's "stability" and his "lack of desire of be competent on issues."

@kylegriffin1
Corker on Trump: "I think world leaders are very aware that much of what he says is untrue." VIDEO

VIDEO OF THE WHOLE HALLWAY INTERVIEW
posted by chris24 at 7:48 AM on October 24, 2017 [58 favorites]

Ben Carson dodged questions about budget cuts & Congressman Al Greene (D-Texas) let him have it. This is awesome! 👊


Awesome, indeed! Wow!
posted by jgirl at 7:48 AM on October 24, 2017 [48 favorites]

Wow, that's gonna be some fun Trump lunch with the Senate today! Please god, a) let it devolve into a food fight, and b) let Paul Ryan get pied in the face.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:52 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh wait, I guess Ryan won't be there, duh. Well, Rand Paul or DiFi then.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:54 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

porque-no-los-dos.gif
posted by entropicamericana at 7:56 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

Politico: Republicans quietly craft Dreamers deal -- GOP senators are getting closer to an immigration agreement that might pass muster with both Democrats and Donald Trump.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:59 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Ben Carson dodged questions about budget cuts & Congressman Al Greene (D-Texas) let him have it. This is awesome! 👊

I guess we might say the Congressman took him to the river...OF PAIN.
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:00 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

I know we're all reluctant to attribute motives to this band of lying, chattering idiots but I think Corker actually has one here. I think he's trying to get Trump riled. The more abusive Trump is to one of their own -- and the Senate is the oldest of old boys' clubs -- the more Corker's chums will resist the tax plan, which Corker already opposes.

Trump having an apoplectic seizure would be just gravy, for Corker, at least.
posted by martin q blank at 8:02 AM on October 24, 2017 [37 favorites]

ok this is maybe bitch-eating-crackers territory here but BY GOD WHAT IS THAT APOSTROPHE FOR?

Maybe he's one of those people who can't figure out how to type accented characters, so he's throwing in an apostrophe instead because he doesn't know any better. liddlé like Michael Bublé.
posted by emelenjr at 8:02 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oh, did we see this particular piece of Zinke scumminess?

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has directed millions of dollars in political contributions since 2014 to a network of Washington operatives that prominent conservatives have accused of profiting by misleading donors.

posted by Chrysostom at 8:03 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

The best part of that Corker interview (well, other than the part where he calls Trump an unstable untrustworthy base liar) is the end where the guy asks him, "Are you going to be at lunch today?" And Corker's all chuckling OH HELL YES, it's MY lunch, bro.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:05 AM on October 24, 2017 [21 favorites]

"Random" apostrophes, quotes, etc. from Trump. Part of a secret code?

Trump trolling us all with Smashmouth lyrics would be a pleasant surprise, somehow.
posted by nubs at 8:06 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

liddlé like Michael Bublé

Lid-lay?
posted by elsietheeel at 8:07 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump trolling us all with Smashmouth lyrics would be a pleasant surprise, somehow.

hey now / I’m a monster / wreck my nation / get paid
posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:13 AM on October 24, 2017 [27 favorites]

Like I don't know what could be held above her head out of reach that would be the most poetic torment for her, but I am pushing for that thing.

Her heart.
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:14 AM on October 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

tonycpsu: Imagine if Corker were in a position to do something to back up his words -- like if he were a member of a legislative body that relies on unanimous consent.

Unanimous is a key word there... a lot of things one might like him to do, e.g initiating impeachment, would be a tactical mistake at this point. Proceedings start, the vote fails, and that's it. (Of course the Constitution doesn't say so, but for practical purposes there's only one shot at it)

I'm not thrilled about Corker's record in general (he wasn't a dissenter on dismantling the ACA, for example) but I am glad he's making the emporer's nudity a valid topic of conversation within the House. That's a first step before impeachment can happen. (Also, there's the feedback loop of Trump's response making the House feel less and less amenable to him)

Still, we're in a Twilight Zone episode that never ends. Even if more Republicans follow Corker's lead in this kind of talk, it's way too plausible to imagine Paul Ryan saying something like "Well yes, obviously the president shouldn't be president at all, he's terrible in every way! But he's the president and I stand by him and something about the troops blah blah blah"
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:14 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Wait, wait, wait. Her name is "Melania Jimmy"? That's just weird.
posted by petebest at 8:18 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

> we're in a Twilight Zone episode that never ends

It goes on and on my friends
Some people, started living it not knowing what it was
And they'll continue living it for ever just just because
posted by zrail at 8:19 AM on October 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

Unanimous is a key word there... a lot of things one might like him to do, e.g initiating impeachment, would be a tactical mistake at this point. Proceedings start, the vote fails, and that's it. (Of course the Constitution doesn't say so, but for practical purposes there's only one shot at it)

That's the only thing keeping me from freaking out about lack of Mueller-mas. The idea that "This case has ONE SHOT at being perfect, it's going to BE perfect..." is driving the investigation. And so help me G-d! I dream of the day I read the criminal complaints....
posted by mikelieman at 8:19 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

@commondefense (anti-Trump veterans organization)
BREAKING: @MilitaryTimes has just released a scientific poll of U.S. military troops. The things it found are game-changing. 1/
- A majority of troops say White Nationalism is a national security threat. They say it's more dangerous than Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. 2/ CHART
- Troops report that White Nationalism is a serious threat, say it's no comparison with "protest movements"/"civil disobedience". cc: @NRA 3/
- Why do troops recognize this? Because they see the threat of White Nationalism inside the military itself. That's a huge problem. 4/
- According to the poll, 1-in-4 troops (and 42% of non-white troops) personally knew of a White Nationalist serving in uniform with them. 5/
- If White Nationalism is so widespread in the active duty military, it's no surprise its poison has infiltrated the veteran community too. 6/ PIC OF NAZI VET
- The Nazis in #Charlottesville included groups LED by active duty military service members. 7/ Leader Of Charlottesville White Nationalist Group Was A Marine Corps Recruiter
- This isn't just limited to "a few bad apples" who slipped through, the poll contains more shocking revelations. 8/
- Nearly 1-in-20 poll responses were open White Nationalists, defended it as an ideology, and attacked minority civil rights movements. 9/
- These open White Nationalists included senior leaders. @MilitaryTimes cited one anonymous Navy Commander (O-5), and one Air Force NCO. 10/
- The infiltration of the military by White Nationalists undermines everything the military is supposed to stand for. #VetsVsHate 11/
- A clear majority of troops recognize the threat and reject White Nationalism. We must take the danger of the extremists seriously. 12/
- Veterans must come together as #VetsVsHate to denounce White Nationalists, and take our institutions back from extremism. /13
- This is all the more difficult when the Commander-in-Chief is weak on Nazis, and they march with torches in his name. #VetsVsHate 14/
- Here's the full report, now public: #VetsVsHate One in four troops sees white nationalism in the ranks
posted by chris24 at 8:19 AM on October 24, 2017 [123 favorites]

> Unanimous is a key word there...

It's unanimous to proceed with normal business, meaning that he can throw his body on the gears of the apparatus if he's so cheesed off. He doesn't need to initiate impeachment proceedings to be useful. He can soak up floor time with speeches where he rails against his colleagues who are happy to go along with the man who he claims to be so angry at. He can lead by example, as someone who doesn't have to worry about his next election, and perhaps create rhetorical space for some other not-batshit-insane conservatives to speak more freely.

He's doing none of that. Stern words to the press fuel Trump's ego -- they do nothing at all to stop him.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:24 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

InTheYear2017: "Unanimous is a key word there... a lot of things one might like him to do, e.g initiating impeachment, would be a tactical mistake at this point."

Impeachment proceedings start in the House, not the Senate. Corker could do nothing procedural to start the impeachment process (he could, of course, start TALKING about it and give the idea impetus, but that's something else).
posted by Chrysostom at 8:25 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

What a comedy cavalcade: Idiot Repub senators who either haven't seen the latest remarks or have had the talking points surgically implanted keep going on TV echoing Paul Ryan's, "Gee, I'd just like to see Trump and Corker sit down and have a nice heart-to-heart and work all this out like friends" bullshit.

Then cut to Corker lobbing yet another grenade at Trump: "Yes, Cliff, I agree that he's a kitten-killing, puppy-torturing menace to society. Sorry, gotta go to lunch." [fake, for now]
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:26 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

We're in a Twilight Zone episode that never ends.

Good evening. For your consideration, one Donald Trump. An less-than-ordinary, thick-witted member of the species, Homo Sapiens, who, through a twist of fate, will become the most powerful man in the world.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:34 AM on October 24, 2017 [26 favorites]

Kid Rock: ‘F--- no, I’m not running for Senate’
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:35 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Oh, now Bob's chatting live with Kasie Hunt of MSNBC about how Trump's "attempted bullying" is pathetic and everybody sees through him.

NEED MORE POPCORN, STAT.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:36 AM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

Yet another journalist falls into the trap of thinking that saying "Have you no decency, sir?" to Trump will straighten him out and cause him to start acting like a president. Or like a human being.

It's especially infuriating because they DO know how far gone he is. This is for pageviews, not change.

Imagine you're a middle exec at CNN making $350k per year to churn out chyrons about "Florida man" or some shit. Work's easy, there's an opportunity to make some REAL money someday, and all you gotta do is not point out the demented sociopath destroying the country by any means necessary.

Aaaaand . . . GO.
posted by petebest at 8:36 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Who's the next repub senator to go full idgaf? Hatch? Hoeven? Thune? Lee? Rounds?

Kind of hope it's Grassley. I think he's charming.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:38 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

No Corker won the retirement challenge, so he's got immunity. Those other guys are still grifting 4 dollars and a chance to spin The Big Wheel.
posted by petebest at 8:40 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

I think the stupid "liddle' Bob Corker" is because Trump knows he already used "Little" for Marco Rubio, but he's so pig-ignorant that he can't even come up with a new insulting nickname for Corker. He'll just go with a new spelling instead.

Even better is that it tells us Trump thinks "little" is the MOST cutting insult, he's willing to go to that well twice. The tiny hands business must drive him insane.
posted by gladly at 8:44 AM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

Oh, now Bob's chatting live with Kasie Hunt of MSNBC about how Trump's "attempted bullying" is pathetic and everybody sees through him.

What's the opposite of meatloaf? This lunch needs to be on CSPAN.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:44 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

> Like I don't know what could be held above her head out of reach that would be the most poetic torment for her, but I am pushing for that thing.

A disadvantaged child receiving a quality education from a public school, and the knowledge that she can do nothing to prevent it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:46 AM on October 24, 2017 [56 favorites]

More tasty bites from the Kasie Hunt chat (via @kylegriffin1)

Corker on Trump: "I've seen no evolution in an upward way. As a matter of fact, I would say, it appears to me it's almost devolving."

Corker: "You would think he would aspire to be the President of the United States... but that's just not going to be the case, apparently."
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:48 AM on October 24, 2017 [32 favorites]

Oops, I made some mistakes in my comment (he's in the Senate, not the House) and appreciate the corrections. And I agree completely with tonycpsu on this: He can soak up floor time with speeches where he rails against his colleagues who are happy to go along with the man who he claims to be so angry at. He can lead by example, as someone who doesn't have to worry about his next election, and perhaps create rhetorical space for some other not-batshit-insane conservatives to speak more freely.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:49 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

The Joy of Reading Miss Manners in 2017

Rebranding politeness as a form of political censorship allowed rudeness to prevail: “‘Political correctness’ became a pejorative term applied to any restraint on expressing views, no matter how vicious or bigoted the views were. And so in that case, what is the opposite of ‘political correctness’? Rudeness and worse. If you say, ‘Well, you’re being politically correct if you say you shouldn’t insult women,’ for instance? Then the opposite becomes, ‘It’s all right to do it.’ So that expression alone, and the way it’s evolved, has done an enormous amount of damage to public discourse. It enables people to put down any form of restraint. And so, by logical extension, to approve the lack of restraint.”

posted by kirkaracha at 8:53 AM on October 24, 2017 [43 favorites]

He also called Kim Jong-un "little Rocket Man".
posted by elsietheeel at 8:57 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Nunes is on the ball with this oversight thing! He's just held a press conference to announce a probe. Into the uranium thing under Obama! Heckuva job, Nuney.
posted by Justinian at 8:58 AM on October 24, 2017 [20 favorites]

Meanwhile, on the Russia front:

House Republican leaders have taken the extraordinary step of curtailing Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-CA) ability to conduct official business out of fear that he is too compromised by his ties to Russia.

Rohrabacher has drawn scrutiny for his longstanding links with Moscow, his closeness to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and his recent willingness to allow his subcommittee to be used for Kremlin propaganda purposes.

In response, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs has placed heightened restrictions on the trips abroad that he can take with committee money as well as the hearings he can hold through the subcommittee on Europe that he chairs.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:02 AM on October 24, 2017 [74 favorites]

The Nunes/King stuff is just so brazenly cowardly and corrupt. How could anyone stand to be like that.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:09 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

How could anyone stand to be like that.

Kompromat plus personality disorders plus fear of your own base murdering you.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:12 AM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

This is how like my political infighting:

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D - Dodgers/Los Angeles) challenged Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D - Astros/Houston) to "a friendly wager." With both their constituent teams in the World Series, the Members of Congress agreed that the representative of the losing team would "deliver a congratulatory statement on the floor of the House while wearing the winning team's colors." The loser will also have to bring "an iconic product from their district to share."

posted by Room 641-A at 9:15 AM on October 24, 2017 [30 favorites]

> If everyone who showed up for HRC votes Northam it’ll be a bloodbath. That won’t happen obviously, because of our stupid off year nonsense and human nature.

In 2016, Clinton carried 17 House of Delegates districts in VA that have Republican incumbents. That would be just enough for us to get a majority in the House. It's probably unrealistic to think we can flip all of them, but we also have some purple districts with Republican incumbents, that voted for Obama and that Clinton narrowly lost 2016. Those are potential pick-ups with good Democratic turn-out.

Apparently we are 70% higher in turnout than this time in 2013. Here’s hoping that means something good.

I like those absentee ballot numbers a lot! Apparently, some people are determined they're going to vote this year.

Pundits like Sabato are assuming the usual pattern of Democrats not showing up in off-elections is going to hold up, and the assumption that the electorate this will look like the one that turned out in 2013 is baked into the likely-voter screens most pollsters use. The WaPo poll from a few weeks ago, though, found a higher percentage of Democrats in VA who said they were definitely going to vote than Republicans. That's not the usual pattern. I think Northam could beat his average polling lead of 7%, and we could do better in the delegate races than most people think.

Democratic volunteers are going out canvassing every week-end where I live. We're conceding nothing.
posted by nangar at 9:16 AM on October 24, 2017 [18 favorites]

I'm thinking liddle' is just his illiterate way of phonetically spelling out li'l, but remembering that there's an apostrophe in there somewhere, so he just sticks it wherever. That's Do'ld Trump for ya.
posted by xigxag at 9:19 AM on October 24, 2017 [15 favorites]

How could anyone stand to be like that.
---
Kompromat plus personality disorders plus fear of your own base murdering you.

And Nunes is potentially implicated in the Russian scandal. So this is also some CYA work.
posted by chris24 at 9:19 AM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

The tiny hands business must drive him insane.

It's no drive. A short walk at the most.
posted by srboisvert at 9:21 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

'Lil Corker is the worst rap name ever.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:25 AM on October 24, 2017

'Lil Corker is the worst rap name ever.

But he put out a great diss track today.
posted by chris24 at 9:27 AM on October 24, 2017 [52 favorites]

The Daily Beast focuses less on Whitefish's connections to Zinke and more on its owner's big contributions to Trump. American citizens in Puerto Rico are going to suffer because of this quid-pro-quo. This seems like a big story.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:29 AM on October 24, 2017 [36 favorites]

Also, as scandal names go, "Whitefish" sounds like "Whitewater", only fishy. Could Blackwater be involved?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:30 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

I know nobody can act on impeachment until Mueller's report. But, I want to look at the impeachment math anyway. We'd need a simple majority in the House, two thirds in the Senate.

In the House we currently have:
Republicans 239* / Democrats 194 / Vacancies 2

A simple majority would be 217 votes, or I guess 218 if we fill both vacancies So we need 22 Republicans plus all Democrats -- or depending on when the vote is, Dem pick-ups plus Republican impeachment votes adding up to 22...

In the Senate it is:
Republicans 52 / Democrats 46 / Independents 2 (caucusing with Dems)

A 2/3rds majority would be 66 votes. So we need 20 Republicans, plus all Democrats. (Or some combination of Republican votes and Dem pick-ups adding up to 20).

I think we can start to name some Republican votes we might actually get, at this point. In the Senate... Corker, McCain, Flake, I feel pretty confident about, if there's a damning Mueller report. Maybe Murkowski and Collins and Moore-Capito? I don't think Rubio likes Trump at all either, after that primary campaign, though he is staying quiet right now. Graham is sucking up to Trump right now, but I think he would take a bad Mueller report very seriously. He's a Russia hawk. Burr and Grassley both seem to be taking their Russia investigations reasonably seriously too? Kinda? Anyone else who is a "maybe" at this point? Anyone else Trump has humiliated on Twitter?

By my count that is 10 out of the necessary 20 whom I could imagine responding to the Mueller report with a vote for impeachment, in the Senate.

In the House? There is more turnover, so it is easier to think about if we assume the Mueller report drops just before the 2018 elections. We've got some people retiring...

Rep. Sam Johnson (R, TX-3), Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R, KS-2); Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R, FL-27); Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R, TN-2); Rep. Dave Reichert (R, WA-9), Rep. Charlie Dent (R, PA-15); Rep. Dave Trott (R, MI-11); Rep. Tim Murphy (R, PA-18), will leave on 10/21/17 (Special election TBA), Rep. Pat Tiberi (R, OH-12),will leave "by January 31, 2018" (Special election TBA)

I don't know their politics at all, but for the sake of simplicity let's assume those folks have nothing to lose by voting for impeachment, but that the seats up for special elections in 2017 will be filled with Trumpists. That'd lead me to expect maybe seven votes out of that crowd for impeachment, if there was a damning report.

Ed Royce apparently voted to rein in Rohrabacher, according to Chrysostom's link. Erik Paulsen is a puppet operated by Paul Ryan, but made a point of the fact that he didn't vote for Trump. And his district, like Royce's is among the 23 that elected Republican reps but went for Clinton at the presidential level in 2016.

I'm at 9 people with names that seem like possibilities in the House? Out of the necessary 22? What about some of those other people in Clinton districts? Are any of them possibilities? If the impeachment vote were in October 2018?
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:31 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

@ddale8
Trump just made up a claim that Ireland was cutting its corporate tax rate to 8%. The Irish prime minister had to call it "fake news":

"When I hear that Ireland is going to be reducing their cooperate rates down to 8 per cent from 12..."

Source: Press conference with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

In fact: Ireland has no plans to slash its 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate. "I can confirm that President Trump's claim that we are proposing to reduce our corporation profit tax to 8 per cent is indeed fake news. There is no such plan to do so," Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said.

posted by chris24 at 9:32 AM on October 24, 2017 [40 favorites]

Oh please start attacking Ireland, half of your base considers themselves Irish
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:35 AM on October 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

For real, the Whitefish thing is some pure and unalloyed Gilded Age grift. I hope some of that ill-got lucre trickles down into the boarded-up little towns near Whitefish and into the community of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, but I know it won't.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:39 AM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

liddle' Bob Corker

ok this is maybe bitch-eating-crackers territory here but BY GOD WHAT IS THAT APOSTROPHE FOR?

liddle' is a contraction of liddlerally.
posted by srboisvert at 9:42 AM on October 24, 2017 [19 favorites]

For real, the Whitefish thing is some pure and unalloyed Gilded Age grift.

Trump's had his Watergate, his Benghazi and his Katrina. Time for his Teapot Dome.
posted by chris24 at 9:43 AM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

But, I want to look at the impeachment math anyway.

Impeachment is a dead end, unless Pence, Ryan, and Hatch would be part of the package. I still favor remediation in the courts if Mueller proves illegal collusion that changed the election outcome. Throw the election out or install the non-cheating candidates in all races where illegalities occurred.

Otherwise, the GOP is allowed to get away with stealing control of the government and they will be incentivized to continue doing it.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:46 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Impeachment would have to be brought up by Paul Ryan. That's never happening no matter what Mueller finds. The only way impeachment math is a plausible topic is retaking the House.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:47 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

I have little doubt that Whitefish is indeed prma face 100 percent grift. It's the sort of stunt you pull when you think you've got everything locked down and you're untouchable - and you can see why the shitlords operate under that assumption.

Unfortunately, these people aren't real gangsters, nor are they operating in an authoritarian state, much as they would like to be both. They're lazy and greedy, and they have lots of enemies - a number that only increases every time they pull a stunt like this.

Can't say whether this is the one that blows up on them, but one will.
posted by Devonian at 9:50 AM on October 24, 2017 [23 favorites]

Whitefish is exactly what we can expect to see more of as we march down the path the Republican Party and the Republican President have taken us to. The only surprising thing is that it wasn't the Trump Organization itself that "won" the contract. I didn't think the Republican President had sufficient self control to avoid awarding himself the contract, but apparently he did.

This is what it's like in nations where the born rich own the totality of the government as they do now in America.

The entire purpose of the contract awarded to Whitefish is to take $300 million from taxpayers like you and me, and give as much of it as humanly possible to the born rich. Whitefish will skim off as much as they can get away with, give subcontracts to other companies owned by other born rich well connected Republicans who will skim off as much as they can get away with, and who in turn will hire yet more born rich well connected Republicans as their sub-sub-contractors. Eventually a few woefully inadequate, not meeting code, power lines will be strung in Puerto Rico for a few million dollars. But if even 10% of that $300 million gets spent on actual power restoration I'll be deeply surprised.

And, of course, a tithe of what was skimmed off by the born rich fuckers will be returned to the Republican Party and (especially) the Republican President as "campaign contributions".

We're living in a country that is newly moving into open and unrestricted graft and corruption the likes we haven't seen for a very long time.
posted by sotonohito at 9:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [50 favorites]

Retaking the House doesn’t matter when we still need 2/3 of the Senate. Impeachment is only happening if all involved are more politically at risk supporting Trump than they are impeaching him.

We’re not there yet. Muller might get us there, or close, but Trump running his mouth at every opportunity is definitely accelerating the process, if the process is to happen at all.
posted by lydhre at 9:54 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

I didn't think the Republican President had sufficient self control to avoid awarding himself the contract, but apparently he did.

Maybe I'm just dumb here but why do we think Trump has anything to do with the Whitefish deal? The deal was awarded by PREPA- does PREPA have any particular connection to Trump?
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:55 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

For real, the Whitefish thing is some pure and unalloyed Gilded Age grift

The weird thing about the Whitefish deal is that that's not a federal contract. It's the Puerto Rico utility (PREPA?) signing the contract with a 2-person shop who promise to hire a bunch of subcontractors.

Now, maybe Whitefish has some special expertise in working in rugged terrain, but I fail to see how they would be better than a bigger firm with more experience in the Caribbean, and more people on staff who know Puerto Rico.

I suspect the determining factor was that Whitefish made promises a more savvy operator would know were impossible. So PREPA will get 30% of their work done, and then Whitefish will hold them up for more, counting on the federal government to provide the funding for the utility as part of the recovery effort. That's possibly the Zinke connection: they can rely on the US government to pay the bill even if PREPA doesn't.

I would not be a contract administrator on this for love or money, because it's going to be a nightmare of change orders, with poor or no documentation of the "changed circumstances".
posted by suelac at 9:57 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

The guy who just yelled "TREASON" at the president is a real hero as far as I'm concerned
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:59 AM on October 24, 2017 [53 favorites]

Trump was just heckled by a protestor in the Capitol who shouted that Trump was committing treason and threw what appears to be several miniature Russian flags in the air as Trump and McConnell walked by.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:00 AM on October 24, 2017 [41 favorites]

I can't see this because CSPAN is blocked, but someone tell me if this happens again.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 10:00 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Neal Gabler, BillMoyers.com: Hollywood, Washington and the Enablers

This is about the people who let the louts get away with their behavior: the enablers. This is about how we live in a culture of enabling where people are increasingly complicit in letting power define values, which is a way of letting our values steadily erode. The real lesson of Weinstein and Trump is that men of influence can get away with anything in America today because the old firewall of morality is so easily breached, and that firewall is easily breached because morality is less important in America than money and status and power or even the vicarious association with these things.

In short, this isn’t about Weinstein’s and Trump’s failings of personal character. It is about the failings of our social character.

The article goes on to ask why enable Trump in the first place?

Here are some guesses. They [Trump's supporters] seem to get a sense of retribution against those whom they regard as contemptuous elites — that old right-wing straw man. They seem to get a vicarious charge from their president’s bullying of the less fortunate. They seem to relish disruption. But perhaps above all and most importantly, they seem to exult in the negation that Trump personifies of traditional morality — oddly enough, the morality that right-wing Republicans so stridently shill — because that old morality has constrained them from voicing how they really feel about things. Our moral revolution, then, is about spite.

... Enabling Donald Trump isn’t self-protection. It is a way to destroy morality as we have always known it.
...
What this means is that it is not just the monster whom we have to fear and blame. It is the enablers who let him be a monster. If we hold the monster accountable, why not hold them accountable too? The preservation of what remains of our nation’s soul may depend upon it.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:07 AM on October 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

Impeachment is a privileged motion in the House, so Ryan can't block it just because he's the Speaker. If there's a coalition of 218 votes to pass it, it'll get brought to the floor. And yes, it's like whack-a-mole. So we have to smack Trump to get Pence to get Ryan. But each one we knock down weakens the movement. Can you imagine how fucking angry the Bannon wing of the Republican Party would be if 20 Republican Senators vote to kick Trump out? And what that intraparty warfare would do to President Pence?
posted by Glibpaxman at 10:09 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Impeachment requires country over party. It's that simple.

And that's, simply, why it has not and will not happen, despite all evidence for its necessity.
posted by Dashy at 10:13 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Kali Holloway, AlterNet: 'Slimy and Weaselly': Harvard Students Describe Learning with Sean Spicer. "He's not what you thought he was; he's worse."

(He currently has a fellowship from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.)
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:14 AM on October 24, 2017 [37 favorites]

The only surprising thing is that it wasn't the Trump Organization itself that "won" the contract. I didn't think the Republican President had sufficient self control to avoid awarding himself the contract, but apparently he did.

Why do something that requires at least some organization and effort when you can just collect payoffs? Trump and his whole organization are inherently lazy. Everything they have ever done just drips half-ass. Grifting by collecting secret service golf cart rental fees, or increasing Mar a Largo membership fees so people can pay for proximity to Trump as he lounges... that's their speed. These are the Martin Shrekelis of the world, people who come in long after the actual discovery and work have been done and then fuck shit up in order to put more money in their pockets.
posted by phearlez at 10:18 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

And yes, it's like whack-a-mole. So we have to smack Trump to get Pence to get Ryan. But each one we knock down weakens the movement

No. You can get support to impeach Trump. But there's not going to be Republican support- any support - for impeaching Pence or Ryan, who are garden grade terrible and not world destroying terrible. And even talking about that now is going to lower support for impeaching Trump.
posted by corb at 10:20 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

I wonder how many of the people that are absolutely, 100% certain, that impeachment won't happen because Ryan, McConnel, or anyone else won't allow it were absolutely, 100% certain that HRC was going to win last November?

I was certain she was going to come out on top, that was the last time I was certain of anything.

It's not like calling for his impeachment means he can't be removed by any other means or pushing for it now means you can't push for it in 2019.

Push on all fronts until something starts to give, then push harder.
posted by VTX at 10:20 AM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

Josh Saul, Newsweek (via AlterNet): Donald Trump Stoops to Pathetic New Low in Effort to Erase Obama's Legacy

President Donald Trump brought up a campaign promise during a March meeting with the U.S. senators from Alaska, asking whether he could roll back President Barack Obama’s 2015 decision to rename the tallest mountain on the continent, spokespeople for the senators confirmed to Newsweek on Monday.
...
The president brought up the idea of changing the name back to Mount McKinley, named for a U.S. president who never visited the 49th state, and the senators quickly argued against it. "Lisa—Senator Murkowski—and I jumped over the desk. We said, 'No, no!'" said [Senator]Sullivan, who was speaking at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage, the newspaper reported.

Harriet Sinclair, Newsweek: Is Donald Trump 'Obsessed' With Barack Obama?

President Donald Trump is obsessed with his predecessor, according to a number of pundits who believe many of the Republican's policies are all about “blowing the former president’s legacy.”

Speaking on his CNN show on Saturday, following Trump’s attempt to roll back the Iran deal, Don Lemon asked the question: “Does President Trump have an Obama obsession?” and suggesting the Republican was “making it his mission to undo every last bit of the Obama legacy.”

Political analyst David Gergen told Lemon he believed the recent announcement on the Iran deal, as well as Trump killing Obamacare subsidies, was “more about blowing up the former president’s legacy than anybody wants to admit.”

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:23 AM on October 24, 2017 [32 favorites]

Here's NC senator Tillis literally bringing popcorn into the GOP luncheon.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:25 AM on October 24, 2017 [48 favorites]

The guy who just yelled "TREASON" at the president is a real hero as far as I'm concerned

First in line for the president's medal of freedom in 2021.
posted by ocschwar at 10:34 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

Boss Tweet
posted by kirkaracha at 10:39 AM on October 24, 2017 [25 favorites]

Re Obama's legacy, if there are any doubts (and there shouldn't be) just look at this overlooked story from a few months ago:

Trump Administration Reverses Bottled Water Ban In National Parks

In 2011, the National Park Service put in place a policy to encourage national parks to end the sale of bottled water. The aim was to cut back on plastic litter.

It was not actually an outright ban — but 23 out of 417 national parks, including Grand Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, implemented restrictions on bottled water sales. The parks encourage visitors to use tap water and refillable bottles instead.

Now, The Trump administration has reversed this Obama-era policy.

posted by Room 641-A at 10:40 AM on October 24, 2017 [18 favorites]

Harriet Sinclair, Newsweek: Is Donald Trump 'Obsessed' With Barack Obama?

I can't imagine a bigger blow to a white supremacist than seeing a black person elected to the highest office in the land. It surely had a destabilizing effect on the Orange Shitgibbon and that he's doing everything in his power to erase that is unsurprising.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:43 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

The Daily Beast focuses less on Whitefish's connections to Zinke and more on its owner's big contributions to Trump. American citizens in Puerto Rico are going to suffer because of this quid-pro-quo. This seems like a big story.

I hope the Democratic ad makers are paying attention.

[OMINOUS NON-RON-HOWARD NARRATOR VOICE, OVER MONTAGE OF PICTURES OF FIRE AND FLOOD]: In 2017, when disaster strikes, good Americans open their hearts and wallets to help.

[FADE IN ON PHOTOS OF THESE GRIFTERS, INCLUDING TRUMP]: But when these Republicans and their cronies see suffering, they look for a way to make a buck.
posted by Gelatin at 10:47 AM on October 24, 2017 [15 favorites]

Tillis tweeted himself loading up on popcorn.

@SenThomTillis:
Ready for lunch with POTUS and @SenateGOP.🍿 PIC
posted by chris24 at 10:50 AM on October 24, 2017 [22 favorites]

Back in 2008 there were a lot of think pieces along the lines of Is America Ready For A Black President? And I thought that question meant: is America ready to elect a black president. The answer to that turned out to be yes! But actually America was so not ready for a black president it elected Donald Fucking Trump in revenge.
posted by theodolite at 10:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [39 favorites]

Specific to Virginia, early voting is very limited (absentee and only with a reason)

No. Absentee voting in Virginia is actually so permissive that it is for all intents and purposes early voting lite if you live in a populated area.

You are correct that it is "with a reason," and let's look at those reasons as listed in paperwork from my county, Arlington. (though the reasons themselves are documented in state law)

A student at a higher learning institution (including your spouse)

Don't have to have class that day. Just need to be a student.

Absent for business purposes (includes those employed outside of Arlington)

Every single person who works in Arlington and commutes into DC for work qualifies here in my area. Doesn't matter if their workday is 30 minutes long, if it's outside the county they qualify. This is obviously more pertinent for populated areas. The Richmond area is comprised of over a dozen counties, each one has its own election board. Do you drive 5 minutes to get to work in a different county? That counts.

Absent for personal business or vacation

I'm going to go shop the outlets in Lessburg that day, I've decided. I'm absent for personal business.

Working and commuting 11 of the 13 hours the polls are open

Polls are 6a to 7p. If you leave for work at 8am and don't make it back to the house by 6p you qualify. Does your commute require you to drop off and pick up kids at day care? That counts too.

Firefighters, cops, active duty military - that's all you need, no matter what your shifts, location, deployment. Take care of a sick family member or you're sick or pregnant - also a simple request, only thing you have to do is say your family relationship to the person you're caring for.

You can look at the application (PDF) if you like. You'll note that many causes require no documentation. "Documentation" is providing things like "name of business" or "travel destination." Not a single one requires some sort of document or other provided item.

Now, this makes voting early marginally more annoying - there's that quick one page form you have to fill out - and I'm not sure whether counties can elect not to run in-person absentee the way mine does. So you might have to request paper, and this is a sub-optimal solution if there's concern that a county might want to be dicks about this to people. But the letter of the law is incredibly permissive.
posted by phearlez at 10:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

We're living in a country that is newly moving into open and unrestricted graft and corruption the likes we haven't seen for a very long time.

For those who haven't listened to the Masha Gessen conversation I keep linking to (which would be well worth your time), I'ma transcribe another chunk. From 1:40:

Richard Fidler: When you saw that footage from a while back of President Trump sitting with his Cabinet - sitting with the Secretary of State, Defence, his National Security Advisor, Secretary of Education - and one by one they all went around the table, saying "It's a great honor to serve under you, Mr. President, you've been enormously supportive, under your guidance we'll have a new age of greatness": what were you thinking when you saw them, one by one, affirm their allegiance and support of President Trump's genius?

Masha Gessen: Well you know, it was one of those moments that are dissonant and shocking at the same time. Or rather, one of those moments that are familiar and shocking at the same time, and that was the dissonant part. Because I'd seen it so many times before! I mean, it looked like a Politburo meeting. Except in a Politburo meeting it would take hours, because there are so many more people, but they would say, you know, "Thank you, our Great Leader, for making sure the sun rises in the morning and goes down at night". And that kind of praise and platitudes, delivered in a highly ritualized way, was absolutely familiar but I couldn't believe it had kicked in so fast. You know, I had always believed that it took generations, or terror, to bring something like that about. And here we were, a couple of months into Trump's Presidency, and they were performing it.

RF: There's the surface language there - "it's great to be here, Mr. President" - but's what really being said though, in that moment?

MG: These were loyalty pledges. Trump values loyalty above everything else, we know that. That, I think, is actually what characterizes the regime he is trying to build as a mafia state. Loyalty is the most important value, and so he needed everybody to perform that sort of loyalty pledge in public.

RF: What do you mean by "mafia state"?

MG: So "mafia state" is actually a term that was coined by a Hungarian political scientist named Bálint Magyar, and he claims or he argues that this is a better way to describe what we have seen emerge in Eastern Europe, whether in Hungary or in Russia, what some people have called kleptocracies and other people have called crony capitalism and other people have called all sorts of other things. And he says none of that is really accurate: the best model through which to understand it is a mafia.

RF: Like gangsterism, you mean?

MG: Ya. There is a patriarch - well, it's gangsterism, but it's not - mafia is actually, I think, more accurate because what's important to this way of government is the clan. The family. It has a patriarch in the middle. The patriarch distributes both power and money. But it's also really important to think of it as a family, because you can be either born into the family or adopted into the family, but you can't join the family voluntarily; nor can you leave voluntarily - you can only be kicked out. And of course the amazing thing is that he's been writing this for the last few years using Hungary and Russia as models and using the word "family" as a metaphor. But of course now we're looking at the White House and it's an actual family that's risen to power and is trying to plunder the country in plain sight.

posted by flabdablet at 10:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [56 favorites]

Re Obama's legacy, if there are any doubts (and there shouldn't be) just look at this overlooked story from a few months ago:

It wasn't overlooked by all of us, and it was another example of grift - they did it based on a dude who owns a bottled water company asking for it to be reversed.
posted by winna at 10:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

kirkaracha's post above regarding reading Miss Manners in 2017 reminds me of something I posted last year in during far less stupid times:

Recently, I realized that they who rail against "political correctness" are making a full-throated argument--and I use the word loosely here--that saying cruel things should not carry social penalties. We literally have a political movement in this country that promotes being an asshole as necessary pre-condition to solving our nation's problems.

I cringe whenever I hear even well-meaning people using the phrase politically correct because it's now such a loaded term. The fact that rudeness and cruelty are apparently virtues to those railing against a strawman idea of political correctness never ceases to fill me with horror.

Politeness isn't inherently virtuous, especially if it's used to further entrench oppressive systems and discourse, but the anti-PC crowd is all about entrenching systems by means of violence and oppressive discourse.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 10:58 AM on October 24, 2017 [40 favorites]

phearlez: "You can look at the application (PDF) if you like. You'll note that many causes require no documentation. "Documentation" is providing things like "name of business" or "travel destination." Not a single one requires some sort of document or other provided item.

Now, this makes voting early marginally more annoying - there's that quick one page form you have to fill out - and I'm not sure whether counties can elect not to run in-person absentee the way mine does. So you might have to request paper, and this is a sub-optimal solution if there's concern that a county might want to be dicks about this to people. But the letter of the law is incredibly permissive."

Politely disagree on this one. I've seen the application, as I've absentee voted in Virginia. The requirements still make it not permissive. Permissive is real early voting. Medium permissive is no reason absentee. Strict is absentee with a reason required, as in VA. Virginia also does not offer permanent absentee status.

Take a look here, and you'll see Virginia is in the most restrictive group of states.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:02 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Impeachment requires country over party. It's that simple.

And that's, simply, why it has not and will not happen, despite all evidence for its necessity.

QFMFT. Republicans are 70% corrupt to the core, 25% delusionally ignorant, and/or 5% rounding error.
posted by petebest at 11:03 AM on October 24, 2017 [15 favorites]

I hope the Democratic ad makers are paying attention.

I welcome any contrasting evidence but so far I'm expecting a lot of Better Jobs! and For My Family pitches which will drive us along the bottom of the ditch WHERE WE ARE. There is no hint that they understand they are fuX3d until they figure out how to message to win. NONE.

Oh hang on, I've just received a text from someone I don't know asking if I will support Tom Whiteman in 11 months. Aw, that's infuriating.
posted by petebest at 11:10 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Vote Whiteman / Whiteman 2020!
posted by peeedro at 11:15 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

In fact: Ireland has no plans to slash its 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate. "I can confirm that President Trump's claim that we are proposing to reduce our corporation profit tax to 8 per cent is indeed fake news. There is no such plan to do so," Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said.


Oh please start attacking Ireland, half of your base considers themselves Irish


Our Prime Minister is the gay son of an Indian emigrant. I don't see Trump's base having a problem if he nukes us.
posted by night_train at 11:20 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

This fantastic guy Abdul El-Sayed is running for governor of Michigan, and god damn I hope he wins. Killer ad.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:21 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

Thom Tillis is a fucking useless moron.
posted by yoga at 11:22 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Impeachment is a dead end, unless Pence, Ryan, and Hatch would be part of the package.

I disagree strongly. Impeachment would send a strong signal that we are still a nation of laws. It would also get a dangerous madman away from the nuclear button. Pence is awful in his own way, but so far there is not much evidence that he was involved in the Russian collusion, and there is no record of him saying "Why can't we use them?" of our nuclear stockpile. That matters to me.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:23 AM on October 24, 2017 [25 favorites]

Also, Ryan and Hatch are not really in the line of succession for impeachment purposes. Pence would be succeeded by whomever Pence chose to serve as vice president.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:24 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

RE: Whitefish

In the comments of the WaPo piece last night I found a link to a piece in Caribbean Business that is obviously a local propaganda kind of piece, but very interesting reading. Meant to reassure the locals that the money is totally going to competent professionals who love PR (both Puerto Rico and Public Relations, IMO).

Also, at the end are the names of 3 other companies contracted for power grid work in PR. Cobra Acquisitions, PowerSecure and Fluor Corp (last night the last was spelled Flour Corp, fwiw)
posted by monopas at 11:25 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wherein somebody photoshops press pictures of Trump in front of paintings of the Founding Fathers in the WH and has them making various insulting and obscene gestures at him.
posted by chris24 at 11:27 AM on October 24, 2017 [39 favorites]

evil grafty corporations named Cobra Acquisitions, PowerSecure

Go home writers etc etc etc
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:29 AM on October 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

Politely disagree on this one. I've seen the application, as I've absentee voted in Virginia. The requirements still make it not permissive. Permissive is real early voting. Medium permissive is no reason absentee. Strict is absentee with a reason required, as in VA. Virginia also does not offer permanent absentee status.

Take a look here, and you'll see Virginia is in the most restrictive group of states.

I don't have any interest in dying on this hill, and I have long been on record as saying that I think the right way to do voting is to have an open period that is 20+ days long; long enough that you guarantee that any person who works on a 7 or 15 day schedule is guaranteed to have at least one day off within that interval. So if you want to talk about what should be the case, absolutely, this is not the optimal case and I'd like to see us dispense with the fiction.

But you are essentially arguing that this is not permissive because you have adopted a definition that says this is not permissive. And it's a lovely tautology but it's close to claiming that I won't freely give water to my preschooler because I make him say "please" first; it is not a definition that most folks would common-sense accept. Citizens shouldn't have to answer a stupid question and sign a piece of paper to vote early, they shouldn't have to know ahead of time what qualifies, and it potentially an attack vector for county boards who might want to engage in shenanigans. But the practice is you just have to make a claim and they accept it.

I guess that's not entirely incompatible with what you say; perhaps this is indeed among the more restrictive group. But I'm way more worried about ID requirements at this phase of the game.
posted by phearlez at 11:31 AM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Talking Points Memo: Roy Moore: Supreme Court Gay Marriage Ruling Was ‘Worse’ Than Upholding Slavery In Dred Scott

“In 1857 the United States Supreme Court did rule that black people were property. Of course that contradicted the Constitution, and it took a civil war to overturn it. But this ruling in Obergefell is even worse in a sense because it forces not only people to recognize marriage other than the institution ordained of God and recognized by nearly every state in the union, it says that you now must do away with the definition of marriage and make it between two persons of the same gender or leading on, as one of the dissenting justices said, to polygamy, to multi-partner marriages,” Moore said in a podcast interview last November, shortly after he was suspended without pay from the court.

[emphasis mine]
posted by hanov3r at 11:36 AM on October 24, 2017 [23 favorites]

But this ruling in Obergefell is even worse in a sense because it forces not only people to recognize marriage other than the institution ordained of God and recognized by nearly every state in the union, it says that you now must do away with the definition of marriage and make it between two persons of the same gender or leading on, as one of the dissenting justices said, to polygamy, to multi-partner marriages

Has Moore even read the Bible? Multi-partner marriages are all over the Old Testament.

(I suspect what theocrats like Moore are afraid of when they invoke polygamy is really polyandry -- a woman getting to have more than one husband.)
posted by Gelatin at 11:41 AM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

Karoun Demirjian, WaPo: House GOP launches probes of Obama-era uranium deal, Clinton email inquiry

Leading House Republicans announced on Tuesday two new probes, one into how the Obama administration’s Justice Department handled a deal that gave Russia control over 20 percent of the United States’ uranium supply, and the other into the how it investigated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

THIS IS WHAT THE #FUCKINGREPUBLICANS HAVE DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE

FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKS
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:45 AM on October 24, 2017 [66 favorites]

Impeachment would send a strong signal that we are still a nation of laws.

Agree, and h Impeachment would send a strong signal that we are still a nation of laws.aving the courts overturn a tainted election would send an even stronger signal.

Also, Ryan and Hatch are not really in the line of succession for impeachment purposes. Pence would be succeeded by whomever Pence chose to serve as vice president.

True, but I had been about to say only if Pence was part of the package, but then I realized that if the two were impeached, Ryan, and if he were included, then Hatch, none of whom as President under this Congress would fail to destroy the country rapidly. Tillerson would be awful, but he wouldn't gun the motor on racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and war.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:49 AM on October 24, 2017

> Pence is awful in his own way, but so far there is not much evidence that he was involved in the Russian collusion.

Why did Manafort pull out all the stops to get Trump to choose Pence over Christie? That's a link to the NY Post; here's CBS news article on the same subject (I've posted links to this one previously). From the latter article:

Christie, the first former presidential candidate to get behind Trump after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary, had assumed a high profile role on the campaign prior to the Convention – reaching out to donors and potential high profile supporters.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, allegedly had another idea in mind.

Manafort had arranged for Trump to meet with his first choice for the job on July 13: Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Afterwards, the plans was for Trump and Pence to then fly back to New York together and a formal announcement would be made, a campaign source said of Manafort’s thinking.

What had previously been reported as a “lucky break” by the New York Times was actually a swift political maneuver devised by the now fired campaign manager. Set on changing Trump’s mind, he concocted a story that Trump’s plane had mechanical problems, forcing the soon-to-be Republican nominee to stay the night in Indianapolis for breakfast with the Pence family on Wednesday morning.

Swayed by Pence’s aggressive pitch, Trump agreed to ditch Christie and make Pence his VP the following day, according to a source.

There is no way that Manafort goes to such lengths to puppet Trump into picking Pence over Christie unless Pence but not Christie was in on the game.

Note that although Pence is generally described as an ultra-fundamentalist former radio host who became governor of Indiana, while he was in the House he primarily busied himself with foreign policy. Here's his committee assignments (taken from his wikipedia page):

107th Congress (2001–2003): Agriculture, Judiciary, Small Business
108th Congress (2003–2005): Agriculture, International Relations, Judiciary
109th Congress (2005–2007): Agriculture, International Relations, Judiciary
110th Congress (2007–2009): Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2, 2007 (Ranking Member)
111th Congress (2009–2011): Foreign Affairs
112th Congress (2011–2013): Foreign Affairs, Judiciary.

Whether or not it's possible to prove Pence's direct involvement in Putin-via-Manafort's games, dude is definitely a suspect. On the rare occasions that I'm optimistic, I think that maybe Mueller is going so slowly because he knows he needs to nail both of the motherfuckers to get a win.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:50 AM on October 24, 2017 [56 favorites]

Pence would be succeeded by whomever Pence chose to serve as vice president.

Pence's choice must be confirmed by the Senate.
posted by Justinian at 11:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ted Cruz has now endorsed theocrasshole Moore for Senate, claiming — evidently with a straight face — that Moore has had a “lifelong passion for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

Yes, the judge who literally broke the law and violated the First Amendment by installing an actual religious shrine in a secular courthouse has a “lifelong passion for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

*inarticulate scream*
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [27 favorites]

@politicoalex
Flake not running for reelection, senior goper confirms

Arizona's Jeff Flake announces he will not seek re-election to U.S. Senate [AZCentral.com; autoplay video]
posted by melissasaurus at 11:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [31 favorites]

Flake not running for reelection, senior goper confirms

I swear that read “groper” on first glance.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:53 AM on October 24, 2017 [48 favorites]

Now he's not running for re-election, I hope Flake feels that vigorously condemning Trump will help him with a future presidential run.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:54 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

(also, the fact that Trump was on the threshold of naming Christie VP before Manafort and Pence manipulated him into naming Pence instead indicates that Trump really is so stupid that, at least as of summer 2016, he thought he was in control of his own organization. Like, he thought he could be all "nope, not going to name that guy Putin wants, gonna name my mob buddy Christie instead!" and get away with it.)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:55 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Yes, the judge who literally broke the law and violated the First Amendment by installing an actual religious shrine in a secular courthouse has a “lifelong passion for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

And he's been positioning himself as a fighter for "religious freedom" for years. Just another reminder that for conservatives, it pretty much always means "freedom to impose fucked-up Christian assholery on everyone else." See also: Hobby Lobby at SCOTUS.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:55 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Has Moore even read the Bible? Multi-partner marriages are all over the Old Testament.

Most sanctimonious assmarmots who love to yammer on about how the Bible says this and Jebus says that have little actual acquaintance with either, IME.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:56 AM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

Flake flakes out.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:56 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

> Karoun Demirjian, WaPo: House GOP launches probes of Obama-era uranium deal, Clinton email inquiry

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

Because of course, it's not important enough of a problem for Congress to buy this Canadian mining company from Rosatom to place it under American ownership, it's only something which justifies perpetual Republican congressional hearings which they will probably spend more money carrying out than they would spend actually fixing the supposed problem.
posted by XMLicious at 11:57 AM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Pence is also tied all up with the Koches- they are the ones that brought him back from obscurity in IN. How that connects with Russia I don't know, but he is in deep with big-money Republican donors.

Understanding Mike Pence And His Relationship To Trump: 'His Public Role Is Fawning'

GROSS: So how do the Kochs first start backing Mike Pence?

MAYER: So this was when Pence was in Congress in 2009. He really did the Kochs a big favor. There was legislation pending that might have put a tax on carbon pollution, and it would have been terrible for Koch Industries. And Pence took up the cause and tried to help defeat that legislation and specifically carried around a pledge that the Kochs had created, trying to get people to sign it. And after he was successful in that, the Kochs invited him to come to their secret donor summits. And at that point on, they started showering him in money. So it was - it's really became a working relationship then. And I hadn't realized that until recently.

posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 11:57 AM on October 24, 2017 [21 favorites]

This Devin Nunes seems like a smart fellow. Possible GOP front-runner.
posted by petebest at 11:59 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

ACLU press release:

Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a bill today to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The government currently uses Section 702 to spy on the emails, text messages, and phone calls of Americans who are communicating with people overseas. The authority is set to expire at the end of the year.

The proposed bill would extend Section 702 for four years with critical reforms that prevent the government from searching for the communications of individuals in the U.S. without a warrant, make clear that the government must provide notice when information collected through 702 is used against an individual, and prevent the government from collecting domestic communications in violation of the law. In addition, the bill requires reporting on how Section 702 is currently being used, laying the foundation for future efforts needed to limit collection under the authority.

posted by Chrysostom at 12:03 PM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

Hey, one little quote nugget from that Roy Moore piece though:

“In 1857 the United States Supreme Court did rule that black people were property. Of course that contradicted the Constitution, and it took a civil war to overturn it. "
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:05 PM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

I think it is quite possible Manafort picked Pence for the reasons we all thought he did at the time... to bring Evangelicals and single issue anti-abortion voters into the coalition. Just like releasing that list of judges and like getting endorsements from James Dobson and Franklin Graham.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:06 PM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

Flake's condeming Trump on the Senate floor.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:08 PM on October 24, 2017 [37 favorites]

Now he's not running for re-election, I hope Flake feels that vigorously condemning Trump will help him with a future presidential run.

Well, he's not calling Trump out by name yet, but:

"Here's the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I'm not willing to take, and that I can't in good conscience take," Flake told The Republic in a telephone interview. "It would require me to believe in positions I don't hold on such issues as trade and immigration and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone."...

...In his prepared remarks, Flake gives a blistering critique of the "coarseness of our national dialogue" that has defined the Trump era, saying it should never become accommodated as a "the new normal."

"We must never regard as 'normal' the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals," Flake says in his remarks as prepared for delivery. "We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

"None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal," he says in his speech.
posted by nubs at 12:08 PM on October 24, 2017 [19 favorites]

Nunes...the guy who invoked the phrase witch hunt in re: Russia and then had to leave the investigation, and is also a climate change denialist, against health care, and in the pocket of the Kochs?

Did I miss the joke? I must have missed the joke.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:10 PM on October 24, 2017

One of the 45 Twitter accounts followed by the president of the United States is @trumpgolf.

Can't argue the dude doesn't show who he is.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:11 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

You missed the joke.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:12 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

So...any predictions on what Trump's epithet for Flake is going to be?
posted by uosuaq at 12:14 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Yeah this is kind of a thing

Flake: "Mr. President, I rise to say: enough."

Flake: "We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal"

Flake: If the shoe were on the other foot, would Republicans accept this behaviour from the president? "Of course we wouldn't."

Flake: "It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end."

He sounds like he's on the verge of tears at points.

Does it mean anything? I don't know, but turn this shit on and watch.
posted by zachlipton at 12:14 PM on October 24, 2017 [100 favorites]

GROSS: So how do the Kochs first start backing Mike Pence?

Eponysterical!
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:14 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Can't argue the dude doesn't show who he is.

Well... “I am not going to play golf. I couldn’t care less about golf.”
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:16 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

The next 14 months of Flake and Corker could be interesting.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:16 PM on October 24, 2017 [26 favorites]

Yes, zachlipton is right: Flake just called the conduct of the White House “dangerous to democracy” from the Senate floor.

O.o
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:17 PM on October 24, 2017 [43 favorites]

The D.C. Circuit reconsidered Jane Doe's appeal en banc and voted 6-3 to vacate last week's ruling from the 3-judge panel and remand to the District Court (so that J.D. can obtain an abortion). Here's the order.

Where the government bulldozed over constitutional lines was its position that—accepting J.D.’s constitutional right and accepting her full compliance with Texas law—J.D., an unaccompanied child, has the burden of extracting herself from custody if she wants to exercise the right to an abortion that the government does not dispute she has. The government has insisted that it may categorically blockade exercise of her constitutional right unless this child(like some kind of legal Houdini)figures her own way out of detention by either (i) surrendering any legal right she has to stay in the United States and returning to the abuse from which she fled, or (ii) finding a sponsor—effectively, a foster parent—willing to take custody of her and to not interfere in any practical way with her abortion decision. That is constitutionally untenable, as the enbanc court agrees. Settled precedent from Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992),to Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016), establishes that the government may not put substantial and unjustified obstacles in the way of a woman’s exercise of her right to an abortion pre-viability. The government, however, has identified no constitutionally sufficient justification for asserting a veto right over J.D. and Texas law.

posted by melissasaurus at 12:18 PM on October 24, 2017 [38 favorites]

I'm glad Flake is near tears because Trump is guaranteed to mock him for it on Twitter and it will be help clarify the message for people
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:18 PM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Interesting that Flake is criticizing his colleagues and the party as much as Trump himself.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:19 PM on October 24, 2017 [43 favorites]

(I miss a lot of jokes these days. Mental and emotional fatigue. Sorry.)
posted by elsietheeel at 12:20 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

"I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and, so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent."
posted by box at 12:20 PM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

I think the amazing thing is that this isn't even exactly a speech about Trump. It's primarily a speech about the moral cowardice of his Congressional colleagues for giving up on "core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment."

(On edit, hi Chrysostom!)
posted by zachlipton at 12:20 PM on October 24, 2017 [33 favorites]

So that's Corker and Flake for impeachment then?
posted by Justinian at 12:21 PM on October 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

See, zachlipton and I aren't the same person. So just put that thought right out of your mind.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:22 PM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

The unity lunch must have gone well.
posted by peeedro at 12:22 PM on October 24, 2017 [86 favorites]

We have to "speak out as if our country depends on it. I plan to spend the remaining 14 months of my Senate term doing just that."

I mean, he's voted with Trump on everything, so I don't know what that actually looks like, but yes please.
posted by zachlipton at 12:23 PM on October 24, 2017 [35 favorites]

An interesting piece in the Austin American-Statesman on How UT Students Got Hooked on Voting

UT Austin was also awarded two Best in Class awards for having the most-improved voting rate among all four-year, public institutions and the most-improved voting rate within the four-year, large, public institution category. The campuswide improvement was a 15 percentage-point increase from 42 percent in 2012 to 57 percent in 2016.

May be interesting to anyone looking to improve voting numbers at other universities.
posted by threeturtles at 12:23 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yeah they're still going to vote to give tax breaks to millionaires so... *jerking off motion*
posted by PenDevil at 12:24 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

The unity lunch must have gone well.

@AliceOllstein
Asked how the lunch with Trump went down, McCain snaps “I’m not going to talk about it.” 😶
posted by chris24 at 12:24 PM on October 24, 2017 [58 favorites]

I sincerely believe that nearly all members of Congress despise Trump with the fury of a thousand suns and will swiftly dispose of him if they believe they will not be personally harmed by doing so. I say nearly because I don't know how Dana Rohrabacher feels
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:24 PM on October 24, 2017 [16 favorites]

Flake not running for election means Ward us a front runner for the GOP.

Getting her as the opponent could mean we get a McCaskill situation or it could mean we get a Trump. So yeah.
posted by Talez at 12:24 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Flake, like Ben Sasse, has been one of those "make a lot of concerned noises but vote with Trump 95% of the time" GOPers, so I'm holding off the kudos until something actually happens. That being said, if he's serious about what he's talking about right now, and ends up actually working against his future former colleagues, I hope he's the first of many.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:25 PM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

Did Flake also announce that he's going to try and primary Trump or ... ?
posted by Tevin at 12:26 PM on October 24, 2017

Eh, I hear the party is pitching Martha McSally, so we could be looking at a fun primary.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:27 PM on October 24, 2017

Holy shit, stop what you're doing and watch this.
posted by photoslob at 12:28 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

This speech should be making me happy that Republicans are finally snapping out of their delusional fugue. It's almost word for word what we've needed to hear from them. But it's actually just making me more pessimistic.

Corker and Flake aren't going to be replaced with Democrats or even semi-sane Republicans who acknowledge Trump is utterly unfit for office while still being simple-mindedly anti-government. They are going to be replaced by more Roy Moores. The Overton Window will just keep shifting.

This is not an awakening. It's a surrender.
posted by dry white toast at 12:29 PM on October 24, 2017 [18 favorites]

I guess Bob Corker is temporarily off the hook. Trump's going to be aimed at Flake for a minute.
posted by Twain Device at 12:30 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

If you prefer reading it, CNN has a copy of Flake's speech as prepared for delivery.

Flake: "Mr. President, I rise to say: enough."

Just to clarify this, all remarks in the Senate are addressed to the presiding officer of the Senate, who is called Mr. President. It's not, directly anyway, describing Trump. That's just the usual form of address in the Senate.
posted by zachlipton at 12:31 PM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

Has he veered into bothsiderism yet and blamed the Dems for lowering political discourse too?
posted by PenDevil at 12:31 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well, Arizona is considered a tossup, so maybe don't wave the white flag already?
posted by Chrysostom at 12:31 PM on October 24, 2017 [28 favorites]

I know that Senate decorum and probity generates a lot of derisive eye rolls here (as it frankly often should), but if you’re not familiar with the Senate and its conventions and norms, this was a really big deal.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:33 PM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

Yes, the last state in the Union to endorse Martin Luther King day will save us.
posted by dry white toast at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, the last state in the Union to endorse Martin Luther King day will save us.

Not with that attitude! :p
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

Getting real tired of people who are absolutely damned certain they know how the future is going to be, I gotta tell you.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:36 PM on October 24, 2017 [56 favorites]

> I know that Senate decorum and probity generates a lot of derisive eye rolls here (as it frankly often should), but if you’re not familiar with the Senate and its conventions and norms, this was a really big deal.

Can you expound on that a little bit? It seems ... a little weaksauce to me that he never actually names the president.
posted by Tevin at 12:36 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, the last state in the Union to endorse Martin Luther King day will save us.

Clinton lost AZ by only 3.5 points, less than NC and OH. Should we write those off too?
posted by chris24 at 12:39 PM on October 24, 2017 [19 favorites]

I dunno, man - this part seems pretty pointed:

If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.

posted by hanov3r at 12:40 PM on October 24, 2017 [39 favorites]

In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order -- that phrase being "the new normal." But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue -- with the tone set at the top.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:41 PM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

You'll be happy to know Trump goes for double dessert even with Senators.

@LACaldwellDC (NBC)
Overheard Secret Service on @realDonaldTrump at lunch. He ate rice and 2 pieces of cherry pie. Took a few sips of his drink. "He loves rice"
posted by chris24 at 12:42 PM on October 24, 2017 [30 favorites]

It's 280 characters now! Fake News!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:42 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Flake also said (paraphrasing) that we now live in a world were people tell us what's fake is true and what's true is fake. Seems pretty clear who he means.
posted by chris24 at 12:44 PM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

the man eats like a fucking toddler
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:44 PM on October 24, 2017 [39 favorites]

I can't stop giggling at "He loves rice"
WHAT A WORLD
posted by something something at 12:45 PM on October 24, 2017 [35 favorites]

this is such a tiny silly thing for me to care about, i know, but
like, was that it? no vegetable, no protein, just rice and pie?
posted by halation at 12:46 PM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/videos/10155902751873675/

Wow.

I don't know if any action will follow this, but he's saying so much of what I've thought and what I've longed for anyone in any position of power to say to Trump since at least the 2nd debate.

The cowardice and ineptness visible at the highest levels of American government and in the American media over the past 10 months has been a force multiplier to all the shit Trump and his gang of grifters, madmen, and liars have been heaping on the world. Especially since so many politicians and journalists all of a sudden find their gumption and their ability to investigate and fact check and counteract when there is a Democrat in the spotlight.

It's long past time that people in positions of power stood up to punch this fucking bully in the fucking nose.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:47 PM on October 24, 2017 [43 favorites]

The alternative is well done steak with ketchup sooooo....
posted by Justinian at 12:47 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

I mean, cherries have vitamins.
posted by something something at 12:47 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Jeff Flake: rogue GOP epistemologist?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:47 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Guys the speech starts at 49 minutes into the "from the beginning" tab of the link zachlipton posted.

He said "morally treasonable". One of those words is not like the other.
posted by petebest at 12:47 PM on October 24, 2017

The Breitbart headline is the blinking text "WINNING: FLAKE OUT".

Surely this is what Trump meant when he said people would get tired of the winning. His definition of winning is to make other people lose, not least the Republican Party.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:48 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Two pieces of cherry pie but no coffee?

👎
posted by elsietheeel at 12:48 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Teddy Roosevelt said "morally treasonable." It's a good quote.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:48 PM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

this is such a tiny silly thing for me to care about, i know, but
like, was that it? no vegetable, no protein, just rice and pie?

Good. The less he shits the stupider he gets.
posted by lydhre at 12:49 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

its OK if there's no protein in his dinner we can microwave him some Dino Buddies before bedtime
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:49 PM on October 24, 2017 [45 favorites]

The less he shits the stupider he gets.

I'm beginning to understand how his early-morning tweetstorm ritual developed.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:50 PM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Perhaps the world could be saved by handing the President a pack of Senokot?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:51 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Well, if the dam is going to break, this is how it'll start. It's a helluva statement.

The starting gun for Thatcher's downfall was a resignation speech. They're not nothing.
posted by Devonian at 12:52 PM on October 24, 2017 [49 favorites]

I think that Flake's speech was quite well done. I don't know what impact it will have in the long run, but surely it will turn some heads. He never mentioned Trump by name, but left tons of unmistakable, implied references.

It's a start, anyway. Movement away from an individual twitter / morning show feud with a single senator (Corker) and toward a direct acknowledgement of the entire party's "complicity".
posted by Room 101 at 12:52 PM on October 24, 2017 [16 favorites]

its OK if there's no protein in his dinner we can microwave him some Dino Buddies before bedtime

As the father of a toddler, this resonates so hard with me, and I'm laughing so hard at it that my work mates are probably concerned.
posted by Twain Device at 12:53 PM on October 24, 2017 [27 favorites]

"He loves rice"

I used to think that they wrap his pill in cheese and hope he swallows without chewing it and horfing the bitter fragments all over the WH carpet (and he really hates it when you try to rub gullet to induce swallowing) but I guess maybe they wad some rice around it instead.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:54 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

"This country was not made great . . . by calling true things fake . . "
posted by petebest at 12:54 PM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

in my haste, above, I typed “probity” when I meant “comity,” exactly the sort of miscue that keeps the president up at night post-tweet, no doubt.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:57 PM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

So that's Corker and Flake for impeachment then?

"hey woah man let's not get carried away, we just expressed concerns, we're not actually going to do anything about it" -corker & flake [real, essentially]
posted by entropicamericana at 12:57 PM on October 24, 2017 [18 favorites]

Sure, just ask for one BIG piece, saves time.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:58 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

"When his term is over, I think the debasing of our nation, the constant non-truth-telling, just the name-calling, the things that I think— the debasement of our nation will be what he'll be remembered most for, and that's regretful," Corker said.

Oh for the love of...you know what non-truth-telling is?

IT'S FUCKING LYING.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:58 PM on October 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

Get the popcorn ready, guys!
posted by jgirl at 12:58 PM on October 24, 2017

Getting real tired of people who are absolutely damned certain they know how the future is going to be, I gotta tell you.

Yawn. I am predicting nothing. I am making a realistic assessment of what this means.

How many of Flake's colleagues are going to stand up and agree with him? Until the party leadership actually stands up to Trump, every departure just pushes the GOP further towards Trumpism. McConnell and Ryan will become further invested in him. They care about their own power first and foremost, and they know Trump will happily destroy them and the Republican Party if he feels wronged by them.

By the time the primaries in AZ, TN, and wherever else roll around, the party establishment may be so invested in Trump (as if they aren't already) that it's impossible for any "sane" conservative to secure the party's nomination.

The more Trumpists we have in elected office, the fewer institutional brakes their will be on Trump's worst impulses. And you're leaving that to a coin toss?

I am more than happy to be proved wrong.
posted by dry white toast at 1:00 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Srsly, pie-people, dig the speech for the closest thing to action we'll see all day/week/???
posted by petebest at 1:01 PM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

Looking at the twitters, McConnell called Flake a team player and said "we just witnessed the speech of a very fine man." From John McCain: "It's very hard for me to add to the eloquence of my friend, my dear friend from Arizona." So not engaging with what he said, praising the man but not the message.

Nothing from Trump yet; I think it'd be really funny if he promised to quit his twitter feuding with republican senators today at lunch, then this happened.
posted by peeedro at 1:02 PM on October 24, 2017 [24 favorites]

OK, yes just words. But politics is the art of persuasion, so words are actions. Maybe not all the actions we'd like, but not nothing. And they give cover to others to speak out. And creates reasons for every reporter to ask every other Senator, congressperson, candidate, etc. do you agree with Corker and Flake. Gets people on the record. One thing isn't going to bring down Trump. It's gonna take death by a thousand cuts. But today was a pretty decent fucking cut.
posted by chris24 at 1:02 PM on October 24, 2017 [59 favorites]

By the time the primaries in AZ, TN, and wherever else roll around, the party establishment may be so invested in Trump (as if they aren't already) that it's impossible for any "sane" conservative to secure the party's nomination.

The more Trumpists we have in elected office, the fewer institutional brakes their will be on Trump's worst impulses. And you're leaving that to a coin toss?

It's also possible that, if Trumpist candidates win the primaries or push the incumbents in a pro-Trump direction, Democrats will win in the general election.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:03 PM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

In Flake and Corker is found the blueprint: GOP politicians will speak out against Trump only after they've decided to leave GOP politics.
posted by klarck at 1:04 PM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Flake and Corker provide the blueprint: GOP politicians will speak out against Trump only after they've decided to leave GOP politics.

Good thing a lot of people are predicting a lot of retirements and that we're way ahead of normal pace for them.
posted by chris24 at 1:05 PM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

Perhaps the world could be saved by handing the President a pack of Senokot?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:51 PM on October 24

Well, if the dam is going to break, this is how it'll start. It's a helluva statement.
The starting gun for Thatcher's downfall was a resignation speech. They're not nothing.
posted by Devonian at 12:52 PM on October 24

I <3 timely congruity.
posted by hanov3r at 1:06 PM on October 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

Flake outright said it: In 2017 (with very few exceptions), you can't oppose Trump and win re-election as a Republican. So anyone who speaks out against Trump is, ipso facto, leaving GOP politics.

What we need is for Republicans to leave GOP politics but not their offices. The Republican party is dead. Find a new home and make it better.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:09 PM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

I dig the speech because it was one of the better speeches we've heard in a while.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:09 PM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]

Yeah, this speech is a Republican senator saying "This is all shit, we all know it, and I can't go along with it any more", on the floor.


I know we're all battle-wearied and cynical as fuck, but this stuff still matters.

Flake said the things that needed to be said. When has that happened of late?
posted by Devonian at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2017 [74 favorites]

For the sake of thread bloat, can we please stop with the food talk?
posted by Tevin at 1:14 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

From the banner at WaPo:

White House press secretary Sanders: Sen. Flake’s retirement from Congress ‘is probably a good move’

they don't have popcorn around we only have the office candy bowl, supercharged with halloween candy oh my god i'm going to die of sugar shock
posted by joyceanmachine at 1:15 PM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

This just my opinion, but a more effective way to say FU to all this is to denounce Trump and not announce that one is stepping down.

Bannon will still organize a primary challenge, but better to make the fuckers do the work.
posted by ocschwar at 1:16 PM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you speak up? -- what are we going to say?

File me under "kind of a big deal."
posted by diogenes at 1:17 PM on October 24, 2017 [31 favorites]

the children won't ask "what did you say," they will ask "what did you do?"
posted by entropicamericana at 1:18 PM on October 24, 2017 [16 favorites]

I know nothing matters anymore, but this really should: WH's Sanders on Trump hailing Baptist pastor Jeffress, who calls Catholicism "cult-like pagan" faith: "not aware of him being anti-Catholic"

Anyhoo, how about a sick burn? @kasie: "Probably the only shot you've got to take me out." -- @clairecmc to NRSC chair @CoryGardner as his car almost hits her in Senate driveway 🔥
posted by zachlipton at 1:20 PM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

Is Kelli Ward being smug on Twitter yet? She would be an absolute disaster of a Senator. I hope that Arizona sees through her nonsense and elects someone who isn't odious.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:20 PM on October 24, 2017

Q: You talked about the President's big policy initiatives, how that will be how History will judge him. Obviously so far right now he has none that have made it through the legislative process on Capitol Hill...

Sarah Sanders: That's not true. Neil Gorsuch got through the legislative process. I would say that's a pretty big historical moment.

It's understandable that the White House can't get laws passed if they don't know what a "policy" is.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:21 PM on October 24, 2017 [27 favorites]

So first Corker with the insubordination, then Flake....

I'm hoping something bigger is going on here behind the scenes. I don't feel like these men just finally grew a spine. They're clearly sensing the momentum after a week of Trump attacking a gold star family, and at first felt like Corker was testing the water...but this Flake speech is something else. We all know harsh words don't mean they'll vote against him, but it's SOMETHING. And it's a hell of a lot stronger condemnation then Mccain/Graham have put together so far.

So the transparent thing to see is that these men are seeing the tide turn and trying to get in front of it. As I put on my paranoid-thinking-hat, I'm hoping it's not just that but they have insider info that the other shoe is finally gonna drop...Russia-gate likely but honestly there are so many things. There could be a big financial scandal about to break, or some other top WH positions may be facing resignations...and my hope is that these spineless R's are jumping ahead of it as soon as possible to help their own future election chances (state level or otherwise). Because if there isn't something else coming to keep pushing the momentum, I don't think words alone and "honor-resignations" are going to cut it. We need a true, evidence based shitstorm to hit this administration and we need it NOW.
posted by andruwjones26 at 1:23 PM on October 24, 2017 [31 favorites]

Sarah Sanders: That's not true. Neil Gorsuch got through the legislative process. I would say that's a pretty big historical moment.

Only by McConnell cheating, twice.
posted by Gelatin at 1:23 PM on October 24, 2017 [24 favorites]

Sarah Sanders: That's not true. Neil Gorsuch got through the legislative process. I would say that's a pretty big historical moment.

It's understandable that the White House can't get laws passed if they don't know what a "policy" is.

"Historical" doesn't mean what Sanders thinks it means, either.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:24 PM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Sarah Sanders: That's not true. Neil Gorsuch got through the legislative process. I would say that's a pretty big historical moment.

That's only happened 112 other times.
posted by chris24 at 1:25 PM on October 24, 2017 [16 favorites]

And so not to abuse the edit window, Sanders tacitly acknowledges the unpopularity of the Republican "hand the other half of the nation's wealth to the super-rich" platform and the party's intent to rule by judicial fiat.

I wonder if any of the professional journalists who cover her will notice -- or admit -- that admission?
posted by Gelatin at 1:25 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Flake said the things that needed to be said.

Flake, like the entirety of the conservative electorate and elected officials, helped create the environment that gave us Trump. At this point saying what need to be said is damn near useless, people who (like Flake) have access to the levers of power need to start doing what needs to be done. Flake is Exhibit A in "willing to say things but never do them," and I'm not sure why, again, we should be giving him the benefit of the doubt here.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:25 PM on October 24, 2017 [17 favorites]

klark: Flake and Corker provide the blueprint: GOP politicians will speak out against Trump only after they've decided to leave GOP politics.

For better or worse, polls suggest that's also the template many Republicans in general have followed -- leaving the party entirely as Trumpism and GOPism become ever more synonymous. The party is shrinking to its Trumpist core, which makes it weaker in some ways and more dangerous in others.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:28 PM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

Metafilter: a true, evidence based shitstorm
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:30 PM on October 24, 2017 [8 favorites]

Newsweek: Majority of US military officers have an unfavorable view of Trump, poll says

The Military Times survey of 1,131 active-duty troops found 53 percent of military officers oppose Trump, while only 30 percent hold a positive view about the president. [...] The Military Times poll was conducted from September 7 and 25, before the Niger ambush and subsequent uproar, but it did not come out until days after Trump's conflict with Johnson broke out.

Support/Oppose:

Officers, all: 31/53
Enlisted, all: 47/37
Air Force: 38/45
Navy: 40/49
Army: 46/38
Marines: 59/17 (yikes)

At some point this thing could come down to the decisions of the officers. Watch out for some kind of military purge of officers as the last canary in the mine.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:32 PM on October 24, 2017 [30 favorites]

Gelatin: Sanders tacitly acknowledges the unpopularity of the Republican "hand the other half of the nation's wealth to the super-rich" platform and the party's intent to rule by judicial fiat.

How so?
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:33 PM on October 24, 2017

It would, indeed, be a big historical moment if a Supreme Court Justice were to get through the legislative process instead of being nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

It'd be a big historical moment if in 2020 the Democrats take power and responded to Republican chicanery by using the legislative process to dilute Gorsuch's vote by expanding SCOTUS to more than nine justices.
posted by Gelatin at 1:34 PM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

How so?

By noting how "historical" it is to maintain the conservative balance on the Supreme Court.
posted by Gelatin at 1:35 PM on October 24, 2017

Watch out for some kind of military purge of officers as the last canary in the mine.

I do not think these are necessarily related, but when I switched tabs and saw this I kind of freaked out a bit: Senior military officials sanctioned for more than 500 cases of serious misconduct
posted by mcdoublewide at 1:36 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

@ezraklein:
"We’ve just witnessed a speech from a very fine man," says McConnell. "A man who clearly brings high principles to the office every day."
The speech was about how McConnell and his co-partisans have abandoned their principles and disgraced their offices.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:38 PM on October 24, 2017 [44 favorites]

Even though I never verbally bet on Flake not saying these things, I'm still willing to eat a cake about this.

I don't care right now that he waited until he was leaving to say these things. I don't care that he helped make this shitshow. I'm going to take this fucking win and shove my face with sweets. I'm going to play this on repeat. A Republican saying these things. I may cry tears of joy. In my cake.

I'll go back to having higher standards tomorrow, ok? Just let me have this.
posted by greermahoney at 1:38 PM on October 24, 2017 [49 favorites]

It's entirely possible that we'll get to the one year mark with the following being President Trump's major accomplishments:

* Picked a name off a list handed to him by Majority Leader McConnell
* Signed a bill imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his ability to lift the sanctions
* Ignored said bill
* Cancelled a whole bunch of Obama-era regulations that hadn't gone into effect yet
* Watched the stock market go up on Fox and Friends
* Made federal agencies shitty
* Temporarily made it harder for people to visit the USA from Chad
* Maintained status as someone who is not Hillary Clinton
* Presented to the world America, That Flaming Dumpster On A Hill
* Made libruls cry moar
* Made Republican politicians cry moar, but in private
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:40 PM on October 24, 2017 [40 favorites]

Marines: 59/17 (yikes)

Marine Corps Insists Marines Are Too Dumb to Know This Is a Nazi Flag

posted by leotrotsky at 1:42 PM on October 24, 2017 [18 favorites]

I'm hoping something bigger is going on here behind the scenes. I don't feel like these men just finally grew a spine.

The reason Corker isn't running for re-election is that he's worried he would lose to a primary challenger, and the reason Flake isn't running for re-election is that he's worried he would lose to a primary challenger. This fact and their subsequent decision to step down gives them the freedom to speak out against a dangerously incompetent President without fear. They may also believe that their only path to future political success is in the role of someone who is both a conservative and who stood against Trump.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:46 PM on October 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

>> > “In 1857 the United States Supreme Court did rule that black people were property. Of course that contradicted the Constitution, and it took a civil war to overturn it."

I'm glad somebody else mentioned this. To belabor the point: Notice how readily people will admit the Civil War was fought over slavery when that isn't the focus of their current talking point. Almost as if the script hadn't been loaded.


> Flake is Exhibit A in "willing to say things but never do them," and I'm not sure why, again, we should be giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

Corporate media is a dog owned and trained by a prejudiced master, so it only barks at women, people of color, and marginalized groups. It has gotten old, fat, and lazy over the years, and they're still trying to feed it table scraps. Even though these are just words, they can be the right words to get that dog barking at something new. No guarantees, obviously, but it's 2017 and people take what they can get.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 1:48 PM on October 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

* Insulted a bunch of veterans and made a war widow cry
* Threatened to nuke another country
posted by Melismata at 1:49 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Gelatin: By noting how "historical" it is to maintain the conservative balance on the Supreme Court.

Eh, I'd chalk that up to "historical" being a filler word for how accompolish-y the accomplishment was, the way Trump likes to call everything "beautiful".
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:54 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Except even with full control of Congress and the White House, the Republicans still can't manage (turn, turn, curse, spit) to pass their legislative agenda.
posted by Gelatin at 1:56 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can't stop giggling at "He loves rice"

He ate so many of them! Hundreds! Maybe thousands!
posted by srboisvert at 2:02 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm so glad we had this thread together
Just to have a snark at was said;
Seems we just get started and before impeachment -
Comes the time we have to say, "New thread."

*tugs ear*
posted by petebest at 2:13 PM on October 24, 2017 [25 favorites]

Like I don't know what could be held above her head out of reach that would be the most poetic torment for her, but I am pushing for that thing.

Her heart.

Except that she no longer has any use for that shrivelled and wretched piece of dried up, old leather.
posted by walrus at 2:54 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is it just me, or does Corker and Flake sound like a delightfully whimsical brand of artisanal sarsparilla soda or ginger beer?
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:32 PM on October 24, 2017 [20 favorites]

I'm going to go shop the outlets in Lessburg that day, I've decided.

Of all the examples you could have used, this really tickled me. I literally want to subscribe to your newsletter so I can read more sentences like this.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:14 PM on October 24, 2017

Corker and Flake is an 80s cop show where Corker is the by-the-book-stick-up-his-ass guy and Flake is, well, the flake. But they close cases! Corker always wears a double breasted suit, Flake has a mullet. They share an apartment and have a pet turtle, Mitch.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:50 PM on October 24, 2017 [23 favorites]

Does the theme song have a lot of wah guitar? Because if so, I'm in.
posted by petebest at 6:52 PM on October 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

chris24: "Honest to god, this is what every drug kingpin does when his organization is tottering. Pay all the defense lawyers so no one rolls."

Except the Cheeto doesn't pay people; should be interesting when those promises aren't fulfilled.
posted by Mitheral at 7:13 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

I tried out Corker & Flake last week. The organic bison burger and duckfat purple fries were really good, but I'd much rather have it served on a plate or even a basket or something instead of a slab of dirty old corkboard. And the cornflakes or branflakes or whatever on the ground instead of peanut shells or sawdust is pretty gross, especially since they seem to insist on doing weird things like using cornflakes on everything fried like it's panko.
posted by loquacious at 9:22 PM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

🍪🍪🥛
come on ppl, one senator grows a little spine and it's like you've forgotten the critical importance of cookies and milk
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 10:27 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

re: flake
Stop praising this piece of shit. He is complicit in bringing about this pus-oozing putrid state of affairs. If he had any balls at all he would vow to obstruct Trump and his fellow traveler rethuglicans, not put his tail between his legs and run away. He's nothing but a self-serving asshole.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 1:55 AM on October 25, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'll wait to praise Flake and Corker after I've seen what they do over the next few months. If it's just more gum-flapping, I won't be surprised.
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:49 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Does the theme song have a lot of wah guitar? Because if so, I'm in.

It's just the Miami Vice Theme played on a kazoo
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:05 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]