The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Thursday
Aug252016
The Commentariat -- August 26, 2016
Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama will create the largest protected area on the planet Friday, by expanding a national marine monument off the coast of his native Hawaii to encompass 582,578 square miles of land and sea. The move, which more than quadruples the size of the Papahānaumokuākea (pronounced 'Papa-ha-now-mow-koo-ah-kay-ah') Marine National Monument that President George W. Bush established a decade ago, underscores the extent to which Obama has elevated the issues of conservation and climate change in his second term. Obama has now used his executive authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect more than 548 million acres of federal land and water, more than double what any of his predecessors have done." -- CW
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met [in Geneva] Friday to try to rescue fading hopes for a truce in the Syrian civil war that would stop the bombing of civilian and rebel areas by Russian and Syrian government forces and initiate coordinated U.S.-Russian attacks on agreed terrorist groups. Asked about the possibility for success, as the two shook hands and sat down in a Geneva lakeside hotel, Lavrov said, 'I don't want to spoil the atmosphere for the negotiations.'" -- CW
Missy Ryan & Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "Iranian naval vessels veered close to American warships this week in a series of incidents that American officials described as harassing maneuvers risking dangerous escalation, defense officials said Thursday. The first incident occurred Tuesday, when Iranian ships made provocative maneuvers around a U.S. destroyer in the Strait of Hormuz, officials said. The following day, Iranian vessels came within several hundred meters of other American ships in the Persian Gulf, with one Iranian ship prompting the coastal patrol ship USS Squall to fire warning shots." -- CW
Andrew Pollack of the New York Times: "Responding to a growing furor from consumers and politicians, the pharmaceutical company Mylan said on Thursday that it would lower the out-of-pocket costs to some patients who need EpiPens, which are used to treat life-threatening allergy attacks.... But the moves did not mollify critics of Mylan because the company did not lower the list price of the EpiPen, which has risen to $600 for a pack of two from about $100 in 2007." -- CW
David Wasserman of 538: "On Monday, a Politico analysis concluded that 'at least one ray of hope for a turnaround' is that Republicans are 'winning [the] registration race' in the key states of Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Iowa.... But much like the Trump camp's claims of July fundraising success, there's far more to this story.... What's happening is more a mix of party switching, natural replacement and removal of inactive Democratic voters from the rolls than a feverish Trump effort to expand the electorate.... It's likely that most of these party switchers were already voting Republican." -- CW
Harry Boyte of BillMoyers.com, republished in Salon: "Trumpism represents a model of public life which replaces citizens as makers of democratic society with a transactional politics that asks only 'what's in it for me?' It is the mark of a society where market values spread without limit, in which we are branding and selling ourselves along with everything else.... Trump's posture -- his constant pivots, his protean notion of 'truth,' his bait-and-switch changes in policy -- embody the logic of a culture where differences between salesmanship and leadership disappear. If Trump is the outgrowth of an everything-is-for-sale culture, his flaws dramatize the need for revitalized citizenship." -- CW
Presidential Race
David Fahrenthold & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: Hillary "Clinton and her husband, Bill, the total [given to charity] is $23.2 million between 2001 and 2015. That figure comes from the Clintons' joint tax returns, which the Democratic nominee has released.... Clinton and her husband donated about 9.8 percent of their adjusted gross income. Trump says he is worth far more than the Clintons. He recently claimed his net worth as more than $10 billion. But it appears he has donated far less. The Washington Post has identified about $3.9 million in donations since 2001 from Trump's own pocket." CW: Trump's charitable giving, then, looks like about .0039 percent of his pretended wealth. Please feel free to correct my arithmetic. ...
... It doesn't take a tax expert to figure out the reasons for the disparity in giving. The Clintons report huge incomes & they reduce their tax liability with charitable deductions. The Trumps, as many have guessed, have little in the way of taxable income that could be offset by charitable deductions. Rather, they use a variety of real-estate deductions to reduce their taxable income to nothing or next-to-nothing. If you want to know what Donald Trump pays in taxes, look at his record of giving. He has made a life-long hobby of stiffing government at all levels (and he's boasted about it).
Ben Leubsdorf. et al., of the Wall Street Journal blog: "The Wall Street Journal reached out to 45 economists who have served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, to ask about this year's presidential election. Most Democratic appointees said they supported Hillary Clinton, while no Republican appointees openly supported Donald Trump. Here are some of their statements." -- CW
** Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton delivered a blistering denunciation Thursday of Donald J. Trump's personal and political history with race, arguing in her most forceful terms yet that a nationalist conservative fringe had engulfed the Republican Party. In a 31-minute address, building to a controlled simmer, Mrs. Clinton did everything but call Mr. Trump a racist outright -- saying he had promoted 'racist lie' after 'racist lie,' pushed conspiracy theories with 'racist undertones' and heartened racists across the country by submitting to an 'emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right.' 'He is taking hate groups mainstream,' Mrs. Clinton told supporters at a community college here, 'and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party.'" -- CW ...
... CW: Clinton's speech is very much worth your time. Jeff Stein of Vox has the full transcript, as prepared. ...
... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: Clinton gave the speech GOP leaders should have given months ago. CW: Right. And the reason they didn't is that none of them wanted to alienate the white supremacist voters Trump embraces. Bouie: "As analysis, Clinton's argument about Trump's distance from the rest of the GOP is wrong. At various points in their campaigns, those Republicans gave their winks and nods to the most toxic elements in their party. And broadly, the Republican Party has long appealed to the white racial resentment and hostility that now fuels the Trump campaign in explicit form." ...
... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "You would expect the leaders and elected officials of the party to rally to [Trump's] side, blast Clinton's speech as a smear and demand an apology. Instead, there has been silence." Paul Ryan (two Twitter accounts), nada. Mitch McConnell (three Twitter accounts), zilch. Reince Priebus ("very active" Twitter account), zero. The Republican Party account, zip. "The most striking thing is not what Republicans are saying. It's how many of them are staying silent." -- CW ...
... Keegan Hankes of the Southern Poverty Law Center: "Hours before ... Hillary Clinton is scheduled to deliver a speech in Reno, Nev., slamming Donald Trump for his connections to the Alt-Right, the racist core leadership of the ideology is collectively tripping over itself trying to take credit for its unexpected success.... A Washington Post profile of the Alt-Right stated 'The goal is often offensiveness for the sake of offensiveness in the way that many young white men embrace.' Andrew Anglin of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer responded plainly in a post, 'No it isn't. The goal is to ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government. Many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated.'" --CW ...
... BUT Donald Trump has no idea what these people represent. Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Donald Trump on Thursday night claimed that he doesn't know what the alt-right is when asked about Hillary Clinton's charges in a Thursday speech that Trump has embraced those who push white nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim beliefs. '"Nobody even knows what it is, and she didn't know what it was. This is a term that was just given,' Trump said when CNN's Anderson Cooper asked if he embraces the alt-right. "There is no alt-right or alt-left. All that I'm embracing is common sense.'" More on Cooper's interview below. CW: Apparently the Southern Poverty Law Center is not one of Donald's go-to sources of information.
Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: "In another harsh attack on his opponent, Donald Trump at a New Hampshire rally on Thursday accused Hillary Clinton of running a 'vast criminal enterprise' that was worse than Watergate, alleging that the Clinton Foundation was part of some sort of pay-to-play scheme while Clinton was secretary of state. Trump did not cite any evidence as he repeated this hyperbolic charge and his supporters shouted 'lock her up.' Moreover, Trump did not mention that his own foundation donated at least $110,000 to the Clinton Foundation.... Throughout his rant against Clinton, though, Trump did not answer this obvious question: If the Clinton Foundation was an illegal pay-to-play enterprise, what did he get for his donation?" -- CW
** Maggie Haberman & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "For 15 months, even as Donald J. Trump vacillated on many other issues, he stuck to a simple, hard-line position on immigration: If elected president, he would form a 'deportation force,' round up people who are in the United States illegally and send them back where they came from. Yet even that promise, so central to his appeal to conservatives, now appears open to negotiation. Mr. Trump faced anger, confusion and disgust from across the political spectrum on Thursday after indicating that he was open to letting some undocumented immigrants remain in the country legally provided that they paid 'back taxes.'" -- CW ...
All the things that Donald Trump railed against, he seems to be morphing into. It's kind of disturbing. -- Jeb!, in an interview Thursday
... Sean Sullivan & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: Eleven "weeks before the election, Trump is suddenly sounding a lot like the opponents he repeatedly ridiculed.... The shift, if it sticks, marks a dramatic turnabout for a nominee who repeatedly attacked Bush, Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and other primary rivals as weak and spineless on immigration, and who repeatedly vowed that he would never waver in his push to deport everyone in the United States who is here illegally." -- CW ...
... Lisa Mascaro of the Los Angeles Times: "Donald Trump's surprising pivot on illegal immigration -- a policy shift that remains in flux -- could bring one of the greatest risks he's faced in an already turbulent campaign.... Trump appeared to be test-driving a new, more moderate approach during a Fox News town hall this week. The idea, which sounded strikingly similar to those of his Republican primary rivals former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, would allow some immigrants to remain in the country as long as they had no criminal records and agreed to pay back taxes.... For many of his ardent supporters, such a change may look like exactly the kind of bait-and-switch they'd come to loathe." -- CW ...
... Wait! Wait! Trump Changes "Words" Again. Theodore Schleifer of CNN: "Donald Trump ruled out Thursday a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants in the United States, walking back comments he made earlier this week in which he appeared open to the idea. But the Republican nominee declined in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper to clarify whether he would still forcibly deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US -- a major tenet of his immigration platform -- after he suggested this week he was 'softening' on the idea." -- CW ...
... Margaret Hartmann: "Trump Denies He's 'Softening' on Immigration, Though That's Literally What He Said Two Days Ago." CW: What we saw in the Anderson Cooper interview was Trump reverting to Trump, which always happens a few days after each extreme makeover. When Trump says something reasonable or even quasi-reasonable, it's because someone else convinced him, for a moment, that it was in his interest to do so. Nice try, Kellyanne, but Trump speaks mainly to himself. ...
... NEW. Based on Cooper's interview, Greg Sargent does quite a good job of decoding Trump's position on deportation. It isn't pretty. Bottom line: undocumented immigrants still "all have to go." ...
... Gene Robinson: "Donald Trump's supporters can pretend otherwise, but deep down they must know the truth: Trump has been playing them for fools all along. All that bluster about creating a 'deportation force' to round up 11 million undocumented immigrants and kick them out of the country? Forget about it. Trump is now 'softening' that ridiculous pledge, which he could never have carried out, into a new policy in which 'we work with them.'... Attempts by allies to explain the complete reversal have been comic. My favorite came from Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, who said this on CNN: 'He hasn't changed his position on immigration, he's changed the words that he is saying.'... In a sense, spokeswoman Pierson was right: Trump doesn't actually have positions. He only has words." -- CW ...
... CW: This is similar to what Jim Newell of Slate wrote the other day: "Trump is not familiar with immigration policy, because he's not familiar with any policy.... Few ideas exist in his head, either. He doesn't even have a whole lot of nouns at his disposal. His head is mostly descriptors, adverbs and adjectives, up to a second-grade level.... There are no 'shifts' in policy, because there is no policy...." ...
... Steve Benen says this in another way: "... the assessment from Trump's spokesperson is worth remembering: the candidate has only 'changed the words that he is saying.' His proposed policy may soon 'evolve,' too, but in the meantime, it's probably best not to take Trump's rhetoric at face value." In the meantime, Benen writes, "what Trump has proposed -- a border wall, mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, etc. -- remains his 2016 platform." CW: Behind the "words he is saying," his spokeswoman confirmed, is the same old racist despot. But we knew that without guidance from the dimwitted Pierson. ...
... Poor Prince Reibus Cannot Keep Up. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said on Thursday that there should be legalization for some undocumented immigrants. 'We never said a pathway to citizenship, and I tend to believe that legalization or some kind of legalization is the proper route, not necessarily citizenship,' Priebus said on Kilmeade and Friends." -- CW
Paul Krugman: "... when Mr. Trump portrays America's cities as hellholes of runaway crime and social collapse, what on earth is he talking about? Urban life is one of the things that has gone right with America. In fact, it has gone so right that those of us who remember the bad old days still find it hard to believe.... So what is all of this about? The same thing everything in the Trump campaign is about: race.... Even when he is trying to sound racially inclusive, his imagery is permeated by an 'alt-right' sensibility that fundamentally sees nonwhites as subhuman." -- CW
German Lopez of Vox: "Donald Trump wants to bring back the 'tough on crime' policies that helped cause mass incarceration.... Trump is an authoritarian strongman, so it makes sense that his approach to this issue, as with immigration and national security, would be to act as tough as possible.... Trump ... would very likely back tougher prison sentences and invasive policing practices, and would likely continue the more punitive aspects of the war on drugs," even though in recent years, Republicans & Democrats alike are now trying to reform the criminal justice system. -- CW ...
CW: All of Trump's draconian policies make sense in the context of his view of humankind:
For the most part, you can't respect people because most people aren't worthy of respect. -- Donald Trump, at some time in the past ...
** Books Review. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times: "To read a stack of new and reissued books about Mr. Trump, as well as a bunch of his own works, is to be plunged into a kind of Bizarro World version of Dante's 'Inferno,' where arrogance, acquisitiveness and the sowing of discord are not sins, but attributes of leadership; a place where lies, contradictions and outrageous remarks spring up in such thickets that the sort of moral exhaustion associated with bad soap operas quickly threatens to ensue." -- CW
Luke Kawa of Bloomberg: "The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States could lead to chaos in markets and increased policy uncertainty that tip the world into recession, according to Citigroup Inc." -- CW
Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "For most of the past year, in fact, the Trump campaign team has been, at best, weakly organized and, at worst, chaotic. But that's not surprising: In his long, carnivalesque business career, Donald Trump has usually put his own interests front and center, and he's never been particularly good at managing sizable operations.... Jack O'Donnell, who had a three-year run as the president of one of Trump's casinos before he quit[, said] "... He was a terrible communicator and didn't know how to sort out his thoughts on a daily basis, let alone provide long-term corporate direction.'... During a 16-month period stretching from late 1989 to early 1991, Trump churned through five different presidents he had hand-picked to run his flagship casino, the Taj Mahal -- a preview of how he's run his presidential campaign." -- CW
Megan Twohey, et al., of the New York Times: Stephen Bannon "was charged in February 1996 with domestic violence, battery and attempting to dissuade a victim from reporting a crime, but the case was dropped when [his wife Mary Louise] Piccard did not show up in court. In court records, Ms. Piccard later claimed that Mr. Bannon instructed her to leave town to avoid testifying. Mr. Bannon, she said, told her that 'if I went to court he and his attorney would make sure that I would be the one who was guilty.'" -- CW ...
... Hadas Gold & John Bresnahan of Politico broke the story. Their report is here. -- CW
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post, like some readers here, found Rachel Maddow's interview of Kellyanne Conway "fascinating." Blake has annotated the full transcript, which is here. CW: I found the interview easier to read (which I did) than to watch (which I didn't, after the first couple of minutes).
Tim Egan: "Most Americans, those born here..., cannot pass the simple test aced by 90 percent of new citizens.... Trump, who says he doesn't read much at all, is both a product of the epidemic of ignorance and a main producer of it.... The dumbing down of this democracy has been gradual, and then -- this year -- all at once.... But what you don't know really can hurt you. Last year was the hottest on record. And the July just passed was earth's warmest month in the modern era. Still, Gallup found that 45 percent of Republicans don't believe the temperature.... They don't accept the numbers, from all those lying meteorologists." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Jennifer Medina & Matt Richtel of the New York Times: "California will extend its landmark climate change legislation to 2030, a move that climate specialists say solidifies the state's role as a leader in the effort to curb heat-trapping emissions. Lawmakers have passed, and Gov. Jerry Brown has promised to sign, bills requiring the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels." -- CW
NEW. Scott Thistle of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald: Gov. Paul LePage (R-Insane) leaves phone message calling legislator a "cocksucker" (twice) and said, "I'm after you." Later, LePage told reporters, "When a snot-nosed little guy from Westbrook calls me a racist, now I'd like him to come up here because, tell you right now, I wish it were 1825. And we would have a duel, that's how angry I am, and I would not put my gun in the air, I guarantee you, I would not be (Alexander) Hamilton. I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he's been in this Legislature to help move the state forward." Includes audio of the phone message. CW: Donald Trump has said he would find a job for LePage in his administration. Hey, how about Ambassador to Mexico?
Way Beyond
Des Bieler of the Washington Post: "Brazil police charged Ryan Lochte with [making] a false crime report Thursday, stemming from the incident that took place during the Rio Olympics when he claimed that he and three other swimmers were robbed at gunpoint. If convicted, the decorated athlete could be given a sentence of one to six months in jail, according to Brazil's O Globo newspaper, although it is unlikely that he will ever return to that country." -- CW
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (17)
After WWII the economy needed to boom. All the Vets coming back from the war needed to get jobs and/or get an education thanks to the GI bill, and Truman initiated The Full Employment Bill. The conservatives were not in favor but in 1946 a watered down version was passed. Along with this legislation Truman appointed a Whitehouse Council of Economic Advisors that has continued to this day. Yesterday it was reported that every single living advisor going back to the Nixon years––I think the number is 17––would not vote for Trump adding that they envision a Trump presidency as "dangerous" or/and "a disaster."
A profound rejection, I'd say.
I, for one, did not find the Maddow/ Conway interview fascinating, merely interesting and again impressed at Rachel's way of trying to get at what she wants to get at without rancor. What I do find fascinating is the duo of Conway and Bannon who are operating from entirely different points of view. Kellyanne, the Trump campaign manager, a skilled operator in her field, having run a super-pac–-"Keep the Promise 1" for Cruz is trying to legitimize her boss, make him appear like a normal bloke running for the presidency while Steve Bannon, Breitbart's shining star acting as CEO for the Trump campaign, is inflaming the crazy. It's like telling your five year old to mind your manners, but if you don't get what you want go ahead and have a tantrum.
An example of "Who the heck is directing this campaign?" Yesterday none other than that little creep Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independent Party and the big pusher for Brexit, was on stage with Trump in Mississippi. How many in the audience even knew this guy– don't think they are into European national politics–or even know what Brexit is––and why on earth was he there? Hillary has attacked Nigel over the "rising tide of right-wing nationalism"––so maybe he was giving a boost to all those white supremacists who whoop and holler louder than anyone else. It sure wasn't a move our smiling Kellyanne would have approved.
Fridge Benefits––always a plus.
@PD Pepe: "Yesterday it was reported"??? Holy crap! If I haven't linked a timely story, give us a link. (Okay, I found one on the Council of Economic Advisors easily enough. But still, as I wrote so elegantly, "Holy crap!")
Marie
"Tim Egan: "Most Americans, those born here..., cannot pass the simple test aced by 90 percent of new citizens."
Years ago I came across a sample of the test given to immigrants who want to become American citizens. It consisted of 100 questions. I took the test myself and missed quite a few. I made copies of this and during a Thanksgiving dinner get together I asked my husband and three sons (no wives involved yet) to take the tests. Everybody missed many––the one who did the best was my youngest son who was still in school and had his Civic's instruction freshly implanted. I recall we all felt uneasy at our results and vowed to brush up on some of that basic American history.
Given recent queries of wandering reporters asking various and sundry political and historical questions show a complete ignorance of even elementary questions–––many didn't even know who Joe Biden was or the name of their own governor–– and surveys regularly affirm that much of the established citizenry is indeed largely ignorant of and indifferent toward basic American history and Civics. There has been so much emphasis on the importance of math and science in our educational system––many schools have even eliminated Civics.
America––where newly minted citizens know more than those Americans who want to "make America Great Again."
You Betcha!
The WaPo article on "both candidates" exchanging accusations that the other is racist has this great quote from Anderson Cooper interviewing DJT:
“But you’re saying she’s personally bigoted . . .” Cooper said.
“Oh, she is. Of course she is,” Trump said. “Her policies. They’re her policies she comes out with the policies and others that believe like she does also but she came out with policies over the years. . . . This is over the years. Long time. She’s totally bigoted, there’s no question about that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ahead-of-speech-targeting-trump-clinton-accuses-him-of-peddling-hate/2016/08/25/fc3f1ade-6a78-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_clintonaltright-500pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Stupid, incoherent, or just incompetent? You decide. Or as DJT likes to say "I dunno, you tell me."
@PD Pepe: There are a number of online trial citizenship tests. Here's one of them. I took a similar one several years ago, & did very well on it, but on one of the ones I "missed" I thought the "correct" answer was actually incorrect. Sure enough, whatever that one was, experts say there are more than one incorrect "correct" answers on the test.
I do think we should all take these tests every decade or so to remind ourselves what we've forgot about how the government works. I've had some pretty smart people tell me how mad they were at Obama for not passing some law or the other. Obviously, they forgot -- or never knew -- the president doesn't "pass laws." Ask a friend -- who won't get mad at you -- something as basic as naming the three branches of government; she probably can't.
Marie
@Patrick: This isn't just incoherent; it's a pattern of defensive behavior. Trump projects his own weaknesses and proclivities onto his opponents or detractors. He doesn't need a "reason" for his claims other than what he gleaned at the "I'm rubber, you're glue" school of philosophical thought.
And, as Jim Newell points out, he uses simple adjectives to replace coherent ideas, principles & policies. His "policy" is he's going to use "common sense" to "make America great again." Studying, deliberating, and even thinking aren't necessary because "good" government policy is intuitive, and the country can be "great" -- which is as generic and amorphous a term as you could find -- but right now it's the opposite of "great," because "bad," "weak," "ignorant" & "crooked" officials have been running the country into the ground.
Marie
Re the Boyt/Moyers piece: Yup and double Yup.
The immediate, fill-your-own-belly concerns we have been taught to have by the celebration of our "market economy" with its elevation of the personal over the public has contributed much to our sad political present. When it's all about "me," there's no room for you...
But I'd go somewhere else (not far) to find another, I think related, source of the disease that afflicts us. If "I" is so important, it is only what "I" say that matters. This morning's NYTimes headline is a case in point. "Clinton says Trump Has Helped Promote Racist Ideology."
She likely said it, but that's not the real, in the sense of really important, news. That news is that Trump has and continues to promote racism. There is no doubt of it. He's done it time and again. That news is the reality, not what someone said about it, but the he said-she said reporting style, which we all hate, inevitably generates a supremely relativistic view of all reality, implying as it does that all that matter is opinion and that one opinion is no better than the next.
Oddly, it's the Right that like to assert there are fundamental moral truths and mounts one attack after another on the evils of relativism, but it's also the Right that makes a good living by repeatedly generating multiple alternative universes because the can't stand the facts in this one.
So it's the Right, which rails against relativism, that benefits the most from it.
Guess that makes me, and maybe Leftists in general, the real Fact Fundamentalists.
Have to think about that as Sunday approaches.
Note to @Marie: I would have given a link to the story, but I heard it on the Maddow program and took notes. Even if I knew it was from the WSJ I wouldn't have been able to link because they refuse me access.
During the Clinton Reno speech yesterday, I was chuckling. All that yada yada about Clinton not doing press or rallies from the Trump swamp. The incoherent Trump babble to Cooper that Patrick pointed out, is clearly the result of poking the bear. Or, as a guy once told me, " I guess I'll have to show him where the bear shits in the woods."
I have Kelly Anne is so nice fatigue. She's a paid shit shoveler who is sporting an enormous bag of hypocrisy turds and a big can of Febreze. She lobs turds like they were coveted giveaways at a boy band concert. One question for you, as a mother of 4 children and someone who hates personal insults, why do you continue to employ that Pierson woman? Not only is she your employee, you deprive the woman of her Thorazine and send her out in public.
I read the Egan column on the dumbing down of democracy and the astonishing ignorance concerning American civics. There is no "both sides" here. There is only one side gleefully promoting stupidity. Only one side has decided that facts, truth, accuracy, morals, ethical and civil behavior don't matter. Only one side has agreed that they can refuse to do their sworn duty, shut down the government if they don't get their way, threaten public safety, and the country's credit rating if a temper tantrum proves more of an immediate need than the stability and reputation of the nation.
Anyway, at one point in the litany of horribles presented as evidence of the Republican Dumbing Down of the nation, Egan points out that plenty of Americans can't name a single Supreme Court justice. In my head I began ticking off the names, counting as I went. As I got to the end of the list, I had a start. Reflexively, I knew I needed nine names and could only come up with eight. For a second, I was stunned. How could I forget one of the Supreme Court justices?
Then I remembered. That's because there ARE only eight.
Republicans refusing to do their jobs.
Again.
These assholes have a lot to answer for. Makes me wish there really was some kind of fire and brimstone afterlife. Love to see Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell burning in sulfur for eternity, with a likeness of Merrick Garland imprinted onto their asses with a branding iron. Every day.
As for Trump, he'd have a looped tape of Hillary Clinton reading him the text of the Constitution and all 27 amendments, piped directly into the auditory region of his tiny brain. Forever.
Bill O'Reilly would be locked in a room with no mirrors.
Paul Ryan would be tasked with having all eternity to come up with a budget that worked and didn't hurt poor people first and last. Couldn't do it.
Feel free to add your own "Hell for Confederates" fates.
As a public service for anyone passing through who has succumbed to Republican stupidity and has forgotten how things work, here is the wonderful Jean Arthur explaining what it takes to get a bill passed in congress. Should be required viewing for those who think the president passes laws or that they're handed down from heaven or some other fabulist bullshit. It's a great speech but today it would go more like this:
"You write a bill to help inner city children get out into the country to experience nature and the natural wonders of the United States. Republicans read it, don't see anything in there about Jesus or a way for Wall Street to make money off it, and they kill it. The end."
This is a textbook description that offers a simple outline of how things work. I remember seeing this as a kid thinking "Wow. I had no idea."
This description of realpolitik in the United States congress was written by Sidney Buchman, a first generation American, son of a Russian Jewish émigré. Buchman also wrote the screenplays for other films that took a jaundiced view of the wingers and Trumps of his day. The film "Holiday" is one. Even more impressive is "Talk of the Town", a story about a union organizer and political activist, played by Cary Grant (with the very European sounding name Leopold Dilg) who is framed for murder by the local Trumps, as a way of killing the union. It also features Ronald Colman playing a judge who takes up Dilg's defense and who, towards the end of the film, is nominated to the Supreme Court!
But life follows art. Buchman, who was a member of the Communist Party for a few years, was blacklisted when his dirty commie movies (looking out for the little guy over monied interests has never been a good career move) pissed off the wrong people. He was blacklisted for not naming names.
So it's interesting how many staunchly anti-Communist Confederates love to depict themselves as Mr. Smith, fighting the good fight, reading Green Eggs and Ham and hoping for a few minutes on Fox after their faux filibuster is finished. Likely they have no idea about the origin of the stirring words of American history and civic heroism that have made Mr. Smith such a classic of American political cinema.
Ignorance runs deep on the right.
More projection from Trumpy.
Every time I read another smear from Trump about Clinton, my first thought is that he's talking about himself.
"A bigot!", "Crooked", "Criminal enterprise", "A liar", "Questionable health", "A lot to hide", "Funny deals with foreign nations"...
Sounds a lot more like Trump than Clinton.
The Guardian sez: "Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon is " registered voter" at vacant Florida home ."
Scandalous or not? Makes me wonder, I've lived in different places over the years, am I still showing up as a potential voter elsewhere? No love here for Bannon, but, despite his being registered in Florida is there any way to show/prove any such individual is 'guilty' of multiple state voting?
Is this just more noise about a creepy guy?
Story breaking on Trump's campaign hiring of Bill Stepian (see Bridgegate/Christie) can things get any weirder there? (NYTimes & Huff Post have the story).
Speaking of corrupt, incompetent, and deleterious...
I came across a list published by Time of the 10 worst cabinet members of all time. Guess which party wins? By a landslide.
Since the early 70's, six out of seven are Confederates. The Decider chose three of the top ten worst cabinet members in history to help him fuck up his foreign and domestic initiatives including his wars of choice, including Donald (unknown unknowns) Rumsfeld, Micheal (heckuva job) Brown(ie), and Alberto (Democrats are traitors!) Gonzales. Reaganites can be proud of buttsmear James Watt, but for my money, Ed (Wedtech) Meese is in a class by himself as a terrible cabinet member.
Those Republicans, corrupt and incompetent asshats from way back.
Hey, just a thought. Time editors may want to reserve at least a half dozen (and maybe all ten) spots for anyone appointed by Trvmpvs, should the orange headed bigot win in November (although it would be a shame to remove any of The Decider's playmates, they all sucking so incredibly badly).
Watching the mainstream GOP reaction to the takeover I'm reminded of an editorial cartoon from 1964. My parents sent it to me while I was overseas. You had the business suited GOP elephant hanging off the labeled right wing of an airplane, peering off into the distance saying; "Extremists? What extremists?"
MAG,
BILL Stepian? Not Steve? What's going on? A first-name flip flop? A cognomen reboot? Does Fox know about this?? I thought I heard that Hannity was getting ready to change his name to "Steve" in the event a cabinet posting for douchebag ball lickers came open. I suppose if he has to go with "Steve" at least he won't have to change his monogrammed diapers.