Are there any rumors circulating that Comey was actually being paid off by the Russians for his interference? There probably should be. Whether or not it's true.
I hear Comey likes to eat pepperoni pizza, IWKWIM.
Am I misreading that Guardian article, or is it more likely that the machine problems in the Guardian article overstated Clinton's vote? If they were double counting votes in Detroit, seems very likely.
I'm sure the Comey thing had a significant effect, but at this point I'm not prepared to accept statistical analysis from Sam Wang.
The Michigan thing is super shady though. I don't think "nobody gets a recount" is an acceptable resolution to what appears to be a systemic problem of mismatched vote tabulations between paper and electronic versions. Especially in the majority of affected precincts, where the mismatch is equal to one vote.
If you want to criticize the DNC and Clinton, you are entitled to the same criticisms that you had on November 7th, but not a single other one.
I'm still going to criticize them for not visiting Wisconsin, which wasn't on my radar at the time, but damn well should have been on theirs.
According to John Bolton Russian fiddling in the election was a false flag operation. I've come to conclude that for a neocon "false flag" means "evidence that does not support my insane world view."
It's a small consolation, of course, but it would be nice to see talking heads on TV debating how much it cost the Russians to buy the head of the FBI. As well as big above-the-fold headlines like "How Much Was Comey Paid to Turn Traitor?"
Has Coney released his tax returns?
not her fault not our fault not my fault she did nothing wrong unfair unfair unfair it was a conspiracy they cheated not her fault cheaters hoocudanode stop blaming cause not her fault blamers racism and sexism to blame the victims poor Hill oh what a great party she had for billionaire donors a week after the election what courage and integrity and of course full responsibility but not her fault quit blaming victim misogynists
Remind me to never offer power or responsibility to a certain category again. They fail, and never learn because victimization is always virtue
It's possible, bob, that there was a lot wrong with her candidacy and a lot that she personally and the Democrats generally could learn from it, and also that the Republicans were not the perfectly honorable gentlemen and -women they're reputed to be. And that (as has been known for yonks) voting machines are widely fucked, etc.
5- It was pointed out that the "should have visited WI and MI more!" argument kind of falls apart because she needed WI MI and PA (or WI MI and FL) and spent tons of time in PA and FL, so even if more visits swung MI or WI that still doesn't win her the EC. OK? CYA.
And if it were just Clinton, but I am watching millions and millions jump up and yell "Stop the blaming! Not our fault" And I have been watching it since Roe v Wade.
You want to job the opportunity somebody to help to care?
Get it fucking done or shut the fuck up and go away. This is adult shit here. People die when you fail.
I'm afraid that 14 is basically right. It's not just Clinton, it's the Senate and the House and a bunch of statehouses.
The most salient fact about American politics at the present moment is that the Democrats are a bunch of losing losers who lose.
12. In the unlikely events of anybody but the Republicans ever gaining secure control of the American government again, it seems to me that the 28th Amendment should be "In any election to any Federal office, all votes shall be entered with a pen or pencil on paper and counted by hand, and it shall be a capital offense to advocate the use of any electronic device in any part of the process."
You want to job the opportunity somebody to help to care?
I thought you'd never ask.
Somehow the Republicans gaining power is a catastrophe that must be avoided at all costs but every Democratic victory stopping that is somehow resulting in an office holder who deserves constant attack from those most worried about a Republican win.
6: Bolton's logic is super precious: since Russia's hacking of Hillary Clinton's server left no evidence, and there was evidence implicating Russia in the DNC hacks, it can't have been Russia. False flag!
I had put together a snarky response to 13, but, on reflection, I think I don't actually care to argue anymore about the myriad ways in which Hillary is or is not responsible for this colossal fuckup.
More important is the discussion: ok, yeah, the election was stolen. What now?
HRC put her million dollar campaign headquarters in...Brooklyn?
The most important fact of the election is 2 and 1/2 million wasted votes in California where the best and brightest smartest strongest feminist anti-racists and Democrats moved to be all together with people like them because they don't want to deal with the flyover crackers.
You have to deal with the crackers, the racist sexist homophobes. You either move and live with them, find compromises and big painful concessions and make deals...
...or as I have been saying for over a decade, you buy some guns, get some training, and shoot a few of the fuckers pour encourager etc. Preferably assholes like...never mind Comey feebles, just kidding. I'm doomed. But the "not my fault" crowd needn't worry. They aren't scared of you at all.
Cause they will enslave and kill you without hesitation.
When y'all gonna learn?
13.last This. Where is the Democratic opposition? Where the fuck is their spine?
Finally, there are news articles about blacks arming up. Good on them. Whatever I can do...
I don't expect feminists to do the same. Absurd thought.
Hey, Bob, how about you go sit in a cold puddle forever.
More good news on the Fibby front!
The most important fact of the election is 2 and 1/2 million wasted votes in California
This coming from someone who himself lives in a redknuckle state and didn't bother voting.
Notice: all the menfolk come around to defend the frail.
Don't do it for them guys. It infantilizes. Walk away.
Time they grew up.
Hey, your plausible deniability is slipping.
At what point should liberals and leftists all register as republicans en mass and start running challengers in GOP primaries, on the theory that taking over the Republican Party or at least pushing it to the left is a more realistic goal than turning the Democratic Party into a competent political organization?
Advocating violence is such an easy, bad answer. No good can come of it. When shooting starts, everyone loses. Let us not become Yugoslavia circa 1995.
Cet animal est très méchant:
Quand on l'attaque, il se défend.
Anyone knowledgeable here who can comment on this thread: https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/808027467617288193
?
31: The undercover cops inciting protesters to move from misdemeanors to felonies are more subtle.
Are you suggesting bob is an undercover cop? That's some deep cover he's got going.
More seriously, yes, agent provocateurs are going to be a real thing. We will need to figure out how to defend against that. It important that our front-line activists understand that the use of violence on our side will be used as a pretext for escalation and crackdowns on the other side.
We cannot win a violent struggle. I don't know if we can win a non-violent struggle, but I think the odds are better.
I am absolutely besides myself, nearly stuttering with outrage. My main problem is that there are too many outrages to focus on one. Pres. Obama should never turn over power to Trump, and I'll be furious if he does because he wants to be perceived as the noble one, who did a difficult thing because it is the procedure. The procedure is broken in many different ways, and I don't get why Obama keeps following it.
If the plan is to let the transfer happen and then the Congressional Republicans will solve things, THAT IS NOT A PLAN. Congressional Republicans have shown who they are, and that ranges from 'refusal to do their duty' to treason.
I keep hoping it'll be like Bin Laden's killing. Obama stays quiet, then strikes.
In the future, only two ideologies will be left standing: one believes taxes are theft, the other believes property is theft. Elections will not be stealable as they will belong to no one.
Are there any rumors circulating that Comey was actually being paid off by the Russians for his interference? There probably should be. Whether or not it's true.
If we're circulating rumors, how about:
McConnell knew the election would be hacked (treason), which is why he held out on the Supreme Court nomination.
I'm not surprised that our Republic has fallen; I'm surprised that it has fallen so cartoonishly.
By mid-September, White House officials had decided it was time to [publicly blame Russia], but they worried that doing so unilaterally and without bipartisan congressional backing just weeks before the election would make Obama vulnerable to charges that he was using intelligence for political purposes.Shocker! Who knew the Republicans were so irresponsible?
[...]
The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.
"The lack of an administration response on the Russian hacking cannot be attributed to Congress," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who was at the September meeting.What little respect I've developed for Obama is gone. What planet is he living on?
More important is the discussion: ok, yeah, the election was stolen. What now?
This is the part that is driving me nuts... it's the only important question, and no one in power seems to be offering anything even resembling an answer. This is a serious failure of leadership in a moment of real national crisis, with a very short window of opportunity. There are a lot of possible options and I don't have a firm view on which is best, but I'm damn sure the best response isn't "do nothing". (NB: calling for an "investigation" is close enough to nothing to count as nothing.)
I, too, am still too angry to cope with this. And I also had to put my dog down this morning. Fuck you, 2016.
23: I take it they're busy flipping out over Keith Ellison's antisemitism or whatever.
I think the (mental) challenge is to avoid despair even when it seems unavoidable. Emotional lockdown is an okay short-term substitute for hope. That said, people are holding local community strategy meetings here and I can't bring myself to believe that it will be anything but awkward and stupid. Is the fear of "awkward and stupid" the enemy of the good?
33: Let's assume it's all true (not all of her claims seem falsifiable, so this is not my actual opinion) -- there's a serious question about who/what is supposed to save us, apart from my personal heroism, obvs. I have to admit I have been paralyzed lately between planning for an existential struggle for the next n years and... not, what, "overdramatizing"? Is that what we'd call that impulse? I did have other plans for the next n years: comfortable, tidy little bourgeois plans cut through with tidied-up ex-bohemian rage-turned-sorrow.
Is there a Kickstarter to bring Pussy Riot to play at the inauguration protests? I would give a stupid amount of money to make that happen.
Rex Tillerson, Exxon-Mobil's chief executive officer, is said to top Trump's list of choices for secretary of state. Exxon-Mobil has joint ventures with Russia's top oil firm, RosneftThe only glimmer of light I'm seeing here is that at least some elements of the security state are still pushing back on this.
Honestly, I don't know.
If he's living on the Procedural Liberal planet after all this time, he doesn't deserve our respect.
If he's doing his thing where he waits and waits and waits even past the point where everyone freaks out that he waited too long, then does something big, he might still deserve our respect. I mean, he did that on gay marriage, for example. And maybe by waiting, he's letting the groundswell build so that his case is conclusively demonstrated by the time he has to make it. But seriously, he's only got a few more weeks and I am freaking the fuck out.
Like, just now I saw Kevin Drum's post about the stolen election, which he ended with "This. Is. Not. Normal." Which is fine and all Resistance-y, but the follow-on to This Is Not Normal is that we stop doing normal things, and where the fuck is that?
Pres. Obama should never turn over power to Trump
Do you think he would have the support needed for this to work? (Either in congress or in the military?) I am doubtful.
Ending the American tradition of peaceful transference of power does not seem very Obama to me.
no one in power seems to be offering anything even resembling an answer
But this! I sent Fallows a piece on different potential answers (appoint a regent until we re-run the election) and he said he'd use it, but he's sitting on it and it is killing me.
We, like, specifically us in particular, could be suggesting alternatives so that people start to hear the concept. Because we all write real good. But I've sent in pieces to Fallows and the Bee and they're taking FOREVER. I suppose I could write the same and put them on Medium.
Reading this thread (good stuff): wait a minute was Lyotard a KGB agent?! There's some wonderful fake news via ambiguous punctuation. As you were.
. I suppose I could write the same and put them on Medium.
Do it today.
McConnell and Comey should both be charged with treason. Anything short of that will be a fucking joke.
Does anyone have a read on how military upper brass feel about Trump? I know he has a lot of support among military rank-and-file, but I don't have a read on the generals.
It doesn't seem very Obama to me either, but I assume he knows more specifics than we do, and I wish he'd consider his duty more than his nobility. I'm worried that he won't do it just because it goes along with his belief system.
I kinda want him to do it just 'cause he's good and pissed about Merrick Garland.
I don't see Obama doing anything radical to intervene. Not his nature, and I don't think he could pull it off if he wanted to. The article in 41 is so fucking demoralizing.
Obama won't do shit. The last exit ramp is the Electoral College, which probably also won't do shit.
Regarding the WaPo, I never thought I would feel this warmly towards Jeff Bezos in my life. Death by comet seems imminent.
I'm a little embarrassed that there are typos, but here's what I sent Fallows:
Donald Trump must not take office on January 20th.
Donald Trump must not take office on January 20th. I will let you supply your own reason; there are enough to choose from. Rather, let's talk about the situation we are in and our alternatives.
One argument for following through with Trump's election is that interrupting the presidential succession could create a Constitutional crisis. We do not have a choice of 'business as usual' or 'potential Constitutional crisis'. Rather, we have a choice of Constitutional crises. We are in a Constitutional crisis right now. The 2016 presidential election was neither free nor fair. It was not free from meddling; Russia openly interfered, as did rogue elements within the FBI. It was not fair; the person who lost by more than two and a half million votes is poised to take office. Californians are seeking to secede over their consistent disenfranchisement. In the abstract, the Constitution offers rules for keeping a dangerous President in check. However, in our concrete situation, we have many years of evidence that the Republican Congress is likely to refuse to govern regardless of the consequences. That track record provides the last piece to complete our current Constitutional crisis.
We know Donald Trump to be corrupt and a danger to the world. We also know the track record of Congressional Republicans For years, they have refused to govern by refusing to consider a Supreme Court judge, by threatening debt default, by shutting down the government. Republican Congressional leadership give no sign of being concerned by Donald Trump's open self-dealing, reckless disregard for international order, nor authoritarian proposals. Given their behavior of the past several years, we cannot reasonably believe they will do their Constitutional duty to keep Donald Trump in check. We must consider other options. The best option is that he never take office; after he takes office, every other option will become far more difficult.
One alternative to Donald Trump becoming president is that the person who won two and a half million more votes than Donald Trump become president. Rather than the Constitutional crisis of Donald Trump's tainted election and corrupt presidency, the nation could choose the Constitutional crisis of converting to the national popular vote. We should consider all options. In light of the danger of Trump and the evident brokenness of our system, we could do something else entirely. We could appoint a neutral regent (Condaleeza Rice?) to be a steward of the country for two years until we hold another election under popular vote rules. We could appoint a council (the Supreme Court?) to run the country for two years until we can hold a presidential election.
If that sounds outlandish, please consider the following questions. What are the extraordinary and destructive things that Donald Trump is likely to do with the Presidency? Do you have any faith in his understanding or restraint? Have you seen any sign that he is surrounding himself with sober council? What additional evidence do you need to believe in his reckless ignorance, cruelty or financial corruption? Do you trust the Republican Congress to place any checks on him, given their abandonment of duty for the last several years? We have every evidence of the incredible risk that Donald Trump poses to the world. When one of Donald Trump's unique threats come to pass (internment camps, a nuclear exchange, international violence), will it console you that America had full knowledge of this risk, but followed proper Constitutional procedures? Will you be proud that you had every reason to know what was coming, but never considered or spoke out for different options because they were taboo? He has shown us who he is. If you believe him, what new choices become justified?
What exactly is the evidence on the Russian hacking thing? I am sure it could have happened but we just have the CIA's word for it now.
I sent that a week ago, and it has only become more true.
OK, hold on. Lemmesee how I get on Medium.
If you guys improve it (NOT WITH FANCY WORDS OR ALLUSIONS), we could sign it Unfogged.
He who has the guns makes the rules, or something Mao said.
It has always been true, and always been known, the plan has been to gain control of the state, and let them do it for us. Send the National Guard to Little Rock, park Feds in Dixie for generations. Big powerful daddy will save us.
One thing I have learned from Ja...never mind is that women are programmed not to fight. To be nice, to fight nice, to play fair, to follow the rules.
Out of tens of millions for decades not one crazy bitch was willing to kill for choice. That's amazing. Horrifying.
So what, guys, we fight for them? Will that teach them? Millennia of women watching men fight for them and over them, almost the same thing, that is how they were taught and permitted to play nice and keep their innocence.
They have numbers, money. They can do it all by themselves, they don't need men at all. How do we make them fight for themselves?
Yeah, I'm fucking pug-ugly.
Read the OP again, ask what she wanted. She explicitly did not want a fight, no mean ugly guys, a group hug, shared commiseration, virtuous victimhood. It hurts so much, it's so unfair. And we are so good and right and nice.
I am not helping that.
I'll carry the ammunition or fix the split eyes, but I am not fighting for women anymore. I'm kicking ass, and if they don't like it they can run to the front faster.
Only ~60 comments in and this may be the most clown shoes thread I've ever seen on here.
60: Not just CIA, entire intelligence community, including NSA, the best in the world at this, plus private security firms.
63: I think you wanted "plug-ugly" there, not "pug-ugly". I'm not fond of pugs myself, but I think lots of people find them pretty cute.
They fail, and never learn because victimization is always virtue
I think it's possible that bob has achieved a personal nadir for lack of self-awareness.
I keep wondering:
Could an investigation into Russian hacking reach laterally into Trump's taxes? (To show that they hold his debt or make payments into them, etc.) Not release the taxes, but look at them for evidence. I mean, the IRS has them, right there. With a warrant, could an investigation look at them?
I mean, make payments to Trump. Or is blackmailing Trump.
I think other than an EC turnaround, which is extraordinarily unlikely, anything that would keep Trump from taking office would be clearly seen by all as a coup, not a resolution of a constitutional crisis, and as much more illegitimate than anything committed to date, likely prompting civil war of some description.
Despite all the potential catastrophe from a Trump administration, peaceful resistance (by any means) is still the least-worst option.
Also, I can't fathom anyone expecting Obama to be the spearhead. We know his instincts, habits, etc. Put not your trust in princes!
70: yes, taxes and also financial records more broadly. That was included in the proposal for an investigation that has already been made. I'd find a link, but someone would have already posted it by the time I did so.
63.3: I forgot one, that pertains to California and Brooklyn.
To stay and play in safe spaces, spaces I suppose made safe by men.
67: I've been doing that wrong for years then.
I think other than an EC turnaround, which is extraordinarily unlikely, anything that would keep Trump from taking office would be clearly seen by all as a coup, not a resolution of a constitutional crisis, and as much more illegitimate than anything committed to date, likely prompting civil war of some description.
This is where I am.
Handing the country over to a regent IS peaceful resistance.
clearly seen by all as a coup
Well, and there's the irony. Doing his duty would also look like a coup and there's nothing for it. He would just have to take the hit to his reputation.
It's not just his reputation at issue.
It would look less like a coup if he handed the White House over to someone else, with plans for an election in 2018.
I mean, does this mean he can't arrest traitors because it would look like a coup?
There's still a difference in degree/kind between illegitimacies.
Also, an EC turnaround would be seen as a coup, or if not precisely a coup, would have the same result.
I have been paralyzed lately between planning for an existential struggle for the next n years and... not, what, "overdramatizing"?
People, seriously, give not overdramatizing a shot.
Yes, but the EC turnaround is explicitly sanctioned by the Constitution. The whole regent thing would most certainly not be.
70, 73: per 41, Obama has ordered an all-agencies investigation, to be completed before inauguration. Meaning, essentially, nothing.
For one thing, regent isn't a term outside of a monarchy. The word you want for an executive irregularly put in office in response to an emergency is a 'dictator'.
an all-agencies investigation, to be completed before inauguration. Meaning, essentially, nothing.
Meaning that, on day 1, the House could impeach Trump and install, uh, Mike Pence.
Or it could impeach both Trump and Pence and install Paul Ryan. The thought has perhaps crossed Paul Ryan's mind.
53: I'm not sure, but I think the brass will mostly accept any orders the believe to be lawful (and they all have lawyers on staff, and tend to listen to them). Anything Obama does would certainly be lawful. But he evidently has no will to do anything. That leaves D congressman, and the EC. Details, I know not. I think Halford does, if he's lurking.
82.2: Kind of, yes, on the same principle by which Comey was not allowed to do what he did. The existence of the election makes it an inherently political issue, given this set of facts at least.
84: Not quite as guaranteed, but still likely, yes. (Best outcome: autoeuthanasia of the EC.)
Anything Obama does would certainly be lawful.
On what authority, Nixon's?
85: is it my turn to tell you to chill out because of course no one is going to do a single thing except talk? This is a chill country, bro: we do "comedy," not "drama." Is it overdramatic to engage with politics at all practically, though? That's the question. I think most people with "good instincts" think so, and as you can see nothing changes as a result.
90: Or a 'transitional government', or 'government of national unity', terms often encountered in ruined third-world nations.
OK, but being an inherently political issue can't make it impossible for him to take any justified actions, like arresting and trying traitors. He'll just have to do the right thing even if it is also the thing he wants to do.
The Trump/Pence tradeoff came up a lot at parties this weekend. I tend to come down on the side of "Pence is as bad in expected-value terms but is at least a known quantity and not going to start a war or whatever", so I'd be okay with impeachment and removal if it comes up (which it won't unless a lot more info comes to light).
And no, I don't especially think Obama will. But we'd be better off if he did. Getting Trump out of office will be even harder than preventing him from getting into office, and the Republican Congress is not going to be any safeguard.
65
"Not just CIA, entire intelligence community, including NSA, the best in the world at this, plus private security firms."
(wipes tears from eyes, composes self) oh man, that was a good one. thanks for the laugh today. i needed it.
95: Sorry, I was unclear. I mean Obama is a lawyer, and legalistic to a fault. He won't do anything without establishing first that it is lawful.
The house has plenty of evidence to support impeachment. I actually do trust that they'll exercise that power as soon as doing so becomes politically convenient--which is likely just after the first major scandal/catastrophe. Until then, they'll work with Trump to get their agenda passed (tax cuts and deregulation, mostly). They'd mostly prefer Pence to Trump, anyway, since he's more of a known quantity, but they're not going to do anything while Trump remains so popular with the base. The Tea Party success in Republican primary elections since 2010 has scared the party far too much for that.
92, 95: I boggled at that, but I think it should have been read as "Anything that Obama actually does is going to be something that's legal, because legal things are the only things he's at all likely to do" rather than "Anything Obama does becomes legal by virtue of him doing it."
The most likely outcome of an investigation into Russian meddling is nada. By the time the investigation concludes, Inauguration Day will have passed. What do you think the investigators would conclude?
IMO there's probably no direct collusion anyway, nor lawbreaking beyond the hacking we already know about. Trump and Putin have similar personalities and common interests. That was known before the election and was factored into the calculations about who to vote for, and in most cases was probably a selling point to his supporters. An investigation would just make the people pushing for it look dumb.
no one is going to do a single thing except talk?
I hope you're right but there's a lot of people whipping themselves up into a frenzy.
Or a 'transitional government', or 'government of national unity'
How about "Ministry of All the Talents"?
87. There is literally no chance that will happen. Trump is ahead by enough EC votes that you need 30+ to violate their instructions and in some cases the law to do it. These people are picked because they are party hacks. In any case, the state legislatures send the "verified" EC results to Washington. They can just ignore people who don't vote for the person they were elected to vote for. Even in the impossible event it happens, Congress can just ignore it and declare the votes "irregular" and elect Trump anyway.
Really, folks, stop expecting Green Lantern to come in and rescue us from Trump, or Obama to ask for a dictatorship, or the military to revolt, or the EC to elect Mitt Romney, or any other stupid fantasy.
We weren't robbed or cheated. We lost a close election due to the weirdness of the EC. Are you going to go into a decline for the next four years? Figure out instead what you are going to do to keep Trump from being re-elected, and in the meantime work to pare the GOP majorities in Congress in two years.
Even in the impossible event it happens, Congress can just ignore it and declare the votes "irregular" and elect Trump anyway.
It doesn't even have to declare anything irregular. The only way the EC could change the outcome would be if 30+ electors swung to Clinton. If they instead vote for some third person - Romney, McMullin, whatever - the Twelfth Amendments requires the House to pick from the top three in EC-votes, so they simply choose Trump from the menu.
107: Dude, if Trump becomes President, there's no coming back from that. I currently think that's better than the alternative, but he will break all of our institutions. Countries that get to sit at the big boy table don't elect somebody like Trump. The best we can hope for is to be a world-wide joke like Italy.
rfts (or anyone), tell me about life in Cleveland. (Although maybe that belongs in the lead thread, sigh.)
We weren't robbed or cheated
I don't think there's anything to do that's likely to change the outcome for the better, but Comey's smear-job combined with the Russian hacking? That's enough for me to think of the election as stolen, rather than ordinarily lost. (Assuming none of the allegations of straightforward vote-counting fraud are true, but of course if any of those panned out, even more so.) This one goes on the list with 2000.
I'm reminded, not for the first time, that when Bob had the opportunity to draw blood in service of his fever dreams, right after George Tiller was murdered, he stayed home. Which is to say, Bob: both a ghoul and a coward! But he does like dogs.
This conveys Obama's view:
"This is not the apocalypse," Obama said. History does not move in straight lines; sometimes it goes sideways, sometimes it goes backward. A couple of days later, when I asked the President about that consolation, he offered this: "I don't believe in apocalyptic--until the apocalypse comes. I think nothing is the end of the world until the end of the world."
It took a hundred years to get from Reconstruction-era civil rights to the modern era -- the blink of an eye, really.
George Carlin also looks at the big picture:
The planet is fine. The people are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doin' great! It's been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what? A hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand and we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a floatin' around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us.
The planet will survive in some form -- even human civilization is a safe bet to survive.
There now. Don't you feel better?
Every loss-despite-the-popular-majority is a pile of shit and betrayal of democracy; but apart from that, I regard the election as more legitimate than 2000. But it's all going to go right south from here. I keep thinking of a line from The Last Unicorn, which I read to my daughter a whole bunch of times last year: "You have let your doom in through the front door, though it will not depart that way."
Unlike 2000, my rage against Wisconsin voters is boundless. White Wisconsinites have the easiest motherfucking lives.*
* this statement not to be taken as verifiable fact to be refuted with statistics etc etc
112: You could ask neb to make a post.
"I don't believe in apocalyptic--until the apocalypse comes."
That sort of makes it difficult to do anything to head it off?
OK, working in fantasyland here, but this is a potential scenario that I think limits the constitutional damage:
On January 19, Obama gets his CIA report that says Vladimir Putin personally stuffed ballot boxes in Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, and PA. He takes it to the Supreme Court, which weighs the evidence, finds it incontrovertable, and declares the election null and void.
On January 20, Obama's term ends, and the top two slots in the federal government are empty. Following the rules of succession, until such time as a new election can be held, the role of Chief Executive falls to Acting President Paul Ryan.
112: I used a Brita filter when I lived in Cleveland.
119: That's closer, acknowledging we're still in fantasyland, but under what legal theory does SCOTUS have that power? Isn't it arguable that removal power is expressly reserved to Congress?
under what legal theory does SCOTUS have that power?
Under Bush v. Gore, bitches.
114: I told ya, men shouldn't do it for them. I expected you above all to be chivalrous.
Republicans know how to use power to grow power, and 2018 is gonna look like 2002. Supermajorities everywhere, constitutional amendments pouring like rain.
The right coast, like Bernie not going Green, will go along to get along. There will be money to be made.
I am thinking the left coast + maybe Colorado will go into resistance. There will be violence, and an attempt at secession. My only hope. Look at Aleppo if you the the war will be easy for the assholes.
Ask your African-American friends if the Civil War ever ended. Well, I guess white folk quit killing each other.
I dream of dying in Santa Cruz, a spliff in one hand and an ammo belt in the other.
Under the legal theory of the empty seat on the Court, which proves that this Republican Congress does not, in fact, fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities.
We're in the realm where the rules aren't clear, but there's a difference between 'having the power to remove the President from office' and 'having the power to declare that the guy everyone thinks was elected President wasn't, because that wasn't a valid election'. I don't think the Supreme Court could do that (that is, the Constitution says that state legislatures are the final word on the validity of the election in each state -- is there a way around that? Maybe?) but the problem wouldn't be that the power to impeach is reserved to Congress: this wouldn't be an impeachment.
I mean, it's not going to happen. But talking about possibilities in fantasyland.
White Wisconsinites have the cheesiest fucking lives
I'm finding this thread interesting. I liked the link in 50. Thanks lurid keyaki.
92 I disagree, I think Obama has done many unlawful things. The drone program and failing to prosecute torture spring to mind quite readily though there are other instances as well.
115- I dunno. For a week after the election I slept 2 hours a night convinced Trump was the Anti-Christ, and that the end times were here. I'm feeling calm and happy now, but I'm not sure I was wrong.
Well, though, cheese is often orange rather than white... I hadn't considered the possibility that naive Wisconsinites would regard Trump as a giant sentient cheese curd and imprint on him. Shit, man, the black swans.
I read this a few days ago and thought it was pretty good. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/class-white-workers-trump-rural-america/
This short bit at the end was what made it stand out to me.
ince I lived there, the population of my childhood town has nearly doubled, fueled in part by telecommuting and cash migrating from Silicon Valley. Median income has risen to $47,000, but the median home price fell 43 percent between 2003 and 2013. The school has moved to more appropriate permanent buildings.
This November, the town (and 362 other Placer County, California precincts not unlike it) voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, 51.1 percent to 39.5 percent.
But it's hard to blame sexism or racism for Clinton's loss.
On Election Day, the people of Placer County also voted for Kamala Harris, a black woman, to be their US senator. Her vote share? 63 percent. And her vote tally? 16,178 more than Clinton's.
Sending letters might help us sooth our feelings. http://directelection.org/
(That joke was so far beneath me that it had a marvelous hypnotic effect on my brain-- then vertigo and exhilaration-- and now, presumably concussion. That said, cheese curds are fucking revolting, one of the worst forms milk can adopt.)
I really need to just stop reading the political threads here for a while.
Or at least I did as an undergraduate.
Past, present, all the same.
Cheese curds are just unaged cheese. The millennials of cheese.
134: you're excused from reading political threads if you send biweekly letters to the FPPs keeping us apprised of your actual concrete work in politics. But yeah... yeah.
you were provoked, lurid; a kind of faux fromage operation....
139: Maybe one of the FPPs can provide a biweekly digest of my FB posts to keep the rest of you apprised.
Let me also vent, "This is not normal" is not a good mantra for general consumption, as it takes too much for granted. It's a response to the defense that all politicians lie, are compromised, etc., etc. Turned into a slogan devoid of that critical context, it connotes that the status quo was good and should be restored.
142: Yes, I really, really, really hate people rallying around that. It's gross and demeaning to those of us who already weren't normal.
Um, though sorry to those of you whose facebook friend I got mildly snippy with about that. I am right; sorry.
143: I was thinking the two of you could race.
143: I was thinking the two of you could race.
One of those races in which the slower person is the winner. . .
Are you saying that we put an abnormal candidate into one of the most powerful offices in the world? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME!!??!!
147: Dueling posts! We'll judge the winner based on the number of comments.
Haven't read the thread yet, so probably owned, but the Austrian constitutional court's solution to the "there were procedural irregularities, such that we can't guarantee things weren't tampered with" was to just rerun the presidential election. There's something to be said for that!
But it's hard to blame sexism or racism for Clinton's loss. On Election Day, the people of Placer County also voted for Kamala Harris, a black woman, to be their US senator. Her vote share? 63 percent. And her vote tally? 16,178 more than Clinton's.
Because Kamela Harris, a Democratic woman of color, beat Loretta Sanchez, a Democratic woman of color, it's a sign that voters weren't racist or sexist?
Rumor is Russia has kompromat on Trump (underage orgy from a visit to Moscow in 2013?) If this is true and the CIA is 1) competent 2) has any self-respect, they'll respond to Trump's attack on them by getting the file from Russia and leaking it.
If it's not true, well, should be easy enough for them to forge it, right?
It's currently the gray, slushy, bleak season in Cleveland, which is dispiriting but only a warmup for the soul-destroying horrors which will arrive in January.
151- I think blacks generally face more racism than Hispanics, and if people were voting their racism why did MORE of them vote for Senator than for President?
131.last/151: I just looked at that county's fuller results. There were 190,550 ballots cast, with 186,024 votes for a presidential candidate, and 141,879 senatorial. So over 25% left their choice blank for Harris/Sanchez, compared to less than 3% for president. Of course who's to say how much of that is since they're both WoC vs. both Democrats.
I do think it's worth stressing the point Megan stresses in 59 and elsewhere: inaugurating Donald Trump as president will be a constitutional crisis.* Not "risk creating" a constitutional crisis. It will *be* a constitutional crisis. So, we can't pretend that we're somehow avoiding crisis by quietly acquiescing to unfolding events. We don't have the luxury of choosing whether or not to face a constitutional crisis.** We're facing one. The only question is how we react.
* does this need spelling out? Because it can be spelled out.
** if analogies weren't banned, I'd have used an analogy to Lincoln here. So, it's a good thing analogies are banned.
Not that that proves all that much, but it's interesting.
I thought this was interesting, I'm dubious but I'd be interesting in seeing people here hate on it. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
155 OK I got that backwards.
While we're posting interesting things. The guy is Biff Tannen.
Please spell out how this is a constitutional crisis. The rules were followed and the candidate who won based on the rules that have been in existence since 1800 is going to be president. You can argue that it will be a disaster (highly likely!), but you really can't argue it's a constitutional crisis.
I think blacks generally face more racism than Hispanics, and if people were voting their racism why did MORE of them vote for Senator than for President?
In rural California, can we take it as given that there's more racism against African-Americans than against Latinos? And it's not that "more people voted for Senator than President"; it's that more people voted for Harris than Clinton. (Trump got more votes than Harris, but because I am not writing articles about American character, I don't have to draw any conclusions from that.) I'm not saying that your pull quote is wrong, just that the Harris-Sanchez race is a confounded enough one that using it for that sort of button makes me doubtful.
You can also argue that the rules are stupid (definitely true!) or that they should be enforced by the federal government instead of the states (also true!), but none of that makes the current system invalid.
"advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie"
Is this referring to the fact that there would be a question about water quality in a debate held in fucking Flint? Obviously Bernie wuz robbed.
158: it would surprise but not totally stun me to learn that all of this was a complete fabrication and the deep state's attempt to save us (and itself) from Trump. Part of that is because I find it literally unbelieveble that whatever hard evidence supposedly exists has not been leaked yet. I would rather have the deep state throw the election than have Trump inaugurated.
163- A federal officer broke the guidelines on the use of power of his office to influence the election?
I mean, there's no way to get through the third paragraph and still have any respect for anything the guy says.
But in the end it rests on "You can't trust reports based on anonymous sources, because I have an anonymous source so I know the leaks didn't come from Russia."
The reason no one is doing anything about that is that there's nothing to be done. Proving and adjudicating that is next to impossible. There's a reason that what he violated was an internal department guideline and not an actual federal law or even a departmental regulation.
161: he will be violating the constitution the moment he takes office. He will be breaking his swore oath to uphold the constitution as he swears it.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/12/9/13799904/trump-corruption-conflict-of-interest
Please spell out how this is a constitutional crisis.
The popular vote exceeding the EC vote by so much makes people hate the Constitution.
Having the popular votes that are thrown out all be concentrated in California makes Californians want to leave even more than they did before. (Delayed Constitutional crisis until we vote our way out in two or three years.)
The fact that the Republican Congress haven't been doing their duty by the Constitution for years, but the Constitution says "rely on Congress to fix it after" means that the process in the Constitution is a self-evident farce (makes people hate the Constitution).
What urple said in 170.
My two drunken, sleep-deprived cents are that Trump will be a constitutional crisis not because of Trump himself, but because of the conjunction of a Republican presidency with a Republican Congress with a demonstrated commitment to the suppression of democracy. In other words, a crisis of 1800 where it is already known that one party is committed to denial of peaceful transfer of power. In shorter words, the crisis is here already, and has been since 2000, if not the Clinton impeachment.
160: Jesus.
I can, but I can't believe that they don't have the discipline to wait another five weeks for this shit.
"peaceful transfer of power" is a bad choice of words. Put otherwise, the Republicans were a disloyal opposition, and now they're a disloyal government. The Russia aspect is the clearest possible demonstration of that.
Oh huh, you can whine directly to the DNC. I wonder who has the enviable job of reading the screeds received.
161: election procedure has been followed _and yet_ the president elect is (a) compromised by a foreign power, as evidenced primarily by his cabinet selection and (b) the president elect swung the election because voters were influenced by that same foreign power. Maybe it's not a constitutional crisis, but it is a crisis.
No way can Trump be allowed to make it to inauguration day. If he does make it, somehow, impeachment has to be the first and only item on the agenda.
The only halfway realistic solution is a non-Trump Republican, right?
And then the Russians start funding the disaffected Trump voters and we get a wave of fascist militia violence...
160: The responses to that tweet show various reasons the analysis could be wrong - the source, Yahoo Finance, could be time-lagged, plus Trump said something about the F-35 on Sunday.
I can't see them impeaching him. Just using whatever leverage his various conflicts gie to push back, if they ever have to, should Trump balk at signing something.
I guess this is just arguing definitions, but my sense of "constitutional crisis" is more or less precisely that following the letter of the C leads to an untenable/nation-destroying outcome that can't be resolved through constitutional means. On paper (ha), the 2018 elections are the constitutional means, but I think that's a facile response.
I mean, we know that the Framers had someone exactly like Trump in mind (per the widely-cited EC Federalist), and thought they'd figured out how to keep him out, but they didn't. And so we're in a situation that the C was written to prevent. How is that not a crisis of the C?
And given that the consequences gravely threaten democratic governance and personal liberty, we're talking about an existential threat.
It's not a constitutional crisis because NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION. Everyone has gone back to the new interesting Black Friday deal. Trump had a vague photo op that showed he was already delivering on his promises, didn't he? And the cars are still running, and Y2K is a bust, so what's the big deal? Gosh I wish that Labor department raise would have gone into effect, but I guess it was silly to believe things would ever change.
That last bit is me pretending to channel a low-information voter.
Bishop's Big Sort is the constitutional/Constitutional crisis.
The country has become flat out geographically ungovernable and irreconcilable, as was evidenced in the structure and disposition of PPACA, with optouts for Red States.
A c-crisis happens when the candidates, parties and factions can no longer represent the people, can no longer reconcile the varying peoples and thus lose legitimacy.
As Megan said, Obama handing over the reigns to Trump is no longer his legitimate decision. It may be legal, but most of us understand Obama is just protecting his future income sources. The candidates and politicians have become wholly independent of their constituencies, and see politics and parties as looting machines.
America, and all democracies, are not at all about majority rule. Democracies are always about minority consent, the consent of the governed. It does not take that large a committed minority to shatter a country.
184: Taking cues from Wafer? I would have Wafer to have a hidden treasure chest of amputee pictures he can protect, defend, and jerk off to. He likes them needy.
Federalism for Democrats Vox, way too cheery.
"Die with an ammo belt in my hand"... please. You'd run a mile from a hamster with a butter knife if it looked at you funny.
A hamster that could hold a butter knife would actually be a fairly intimidating hamster, as hamsters go. I might quietly sidle away from it myself.
OT: Chicago doesn't have enough snow for all the delay I've had.
Aww, now LB you know you're only saying that because you want to appear frail and needy.
OTOH, the CEO of my company, who is a typical centrist elite write-big-checks-to-both-sides kind of rich person (in the last cycle he wrote big checks to Obama, McConnell, Boehner, Schumer, etc.), and who early in the year publicly baffled at the idea that anyone could be supporting Trump given that he's such a clown, and who supported Hillary in the election, is now... not exactly thrilled with the election outcome, but feeling positive about it overall because of the massive tax cuts that he is now sure are coming his way (and which in his mind basically are good enough to offset anything that could go wrong*). I... guess I hope he's right?
How else, after all, can I ever expect to get a date?
Somebody tap the Scotsman. He's stuck again.
Somebody tap the Scotsman. He's stuck again.
Don't Leave Your Records In The Sun.
Line in a movie, from a forty something guy to a twenty something guy:"What, you never learned to comfort women?"
Way important skill, and not only because it will get you laid.
If you get good at "comforting women," then obviously you can abuse women on Tuesday, use them on Wednesday, and then get them back and cooking on Thursday. "He, and only he, really and truly cares." "He makes me laugh when I'm down". Hi, Moby
Men are taught to "comfort women" at an early age, and the ones who learn it best become pimps and fathers who trade women in when the kids are grown.
At least the asshole who says:"Not my problem, deal with your own pain, I don't want it." very likely are not trying to hustle something from you.
But who knows what women want, and who cares.
It's been about three years since you've accused somebody of being a domestic abuser by name. (Hope all is well Tweety.)
At least the asshole who says:"Not my problem, deal with your own pain, I don't want it." very likely are [sic] not trying to hustle something from you.
This is totally false. No one would say this without a goal in mind. If that's how you feel you just STFU. But you are saying all of this for a purpose. Maybe it's because you're desperate to get some wise advice, which I will now give: take the rest of the year off from this place. You're wasting your life.
My flight connection time was so short that I couldn't even void on Chicago.
207: that would be/ to gild refined gold, or paint the lily.
A hamster that could hold a butter knife would actually be a fairly intimidating hamster, as hamsters go. I might quietly sidle away from it myself.
A hamster bit me once. Then urinated on me. God forbid the little bastards take up arms.
A hamster bit me once. Then urinated on me.
In my head these lines are spoken by Rowan Atkinson.
205:
Wondered what that was about, which you'll remember I wandered into a couple of years ago. Makes sense.
205: I know men. I have never seen a household without abuse. It is always denied by both egos (the woman gets to suffer and sacrifice). My experience says the most publicly protective men, the ones who are competitive in mixed company over pleasing and flattering women, are certain abusers. It has to do with getting rewards for manipulating women. If you can make them laugh etc, you feel powerful and validated. These men are rarely alone. Different from rapists, more ambitious and cruel, taking the body and futures away.
Anyway, to my great disappointment, everybody got married and made babies around ten years ago. In the next five years or so, the stories around here are gonna be getting good.
Bob, just stop it. This thread is not and should not be about you, your emotional problems, and your projection of them onto others.
So a thread about what we should do about horrific idiot trolls has me thinking act locally, right?
Bishop's Big Sort is the constitutional/Constitutional crisis.
It kind of make sense that the next logical step after the Big Sort is the Big Split.
Void in the place where you live. Like the might hamster.
218: Aw c'mon, I am kind or bored enough to stay out of the constant "Thorn's in heat" threads aren't I?
221: Presumably neither, but I can't imagine anyone cares either way.
Nobody try to start an interpersonal relationship. That's how they get you or you get them. Depending.
I worry that 170 was not clear enough. How is this: Bipartisan legal experts warn that the electoral college must reject Trump is he doesn't divest his assets. He has made perfectly clear that he's not going to divest. The ethics counsel quoted in the article believe that if Trump is allowed to take office without having divested, it will be a full blown crisis. So, again, crisis cannot be avoided at this stage. I wish it could, but pretending it can is pure fantasy. We have to decide how we're going to respond to crisis. And to me, the best way to mitigate this crisis is to use any and all means available to prevent Trump from assuming office.
I'm increasingly realizing I'm not all that sensible of the inherent definition of constitutional crisis. Generally for something to be a crisis it needs to be inevitably leading to a concrete disaster unless addressed - like the debt ceiling. I don't think constitutional crisis is meant so strictly, but then is anything unconstitutional a crisis, even if it's a stably bad situation, like people lacking their voting rights granted under the Fourteenth Amendment?
Democracies are always about minority consent, the consent of the governed. It does not take that large a committed minority to shatter a country.
I think this is right, actually. The revolution of 1800 was that the minority gave consent; the Republicans today do not consent.
Far as I can tell, the way we're going to respond to crisis is to give away our existing power to an unstable touchy asshole, and then resist real hard when he does something terrible. This is a fucking awful plan. Who do you want in charge when the crisis comes: the over-restrained one or the one who could well nuke an American city for insulting him?
You can call it a constitutional crisis if you want, but Trump is going to be inaugurated and there's nothing any of us can do to prevent that.
Which is not to say there's nothing any of us can do to help in the extremely difficult situation the country is in right now, but those things are overwhelmingly on the local level, which is where we have to start if we're going to accomplish anything significant. I just submitted an online application to volunteer with Catholic Social Services on refugee resettlement locally, which is an opportunity that was discussed at the state Young Democrats meeting that I attended on Saturday. That's not going to keep Trump out of the White House, but it'll put me in a position to at least try to mitigate whatever damage he causes once he's there, and it'll keep the Young Dems going as a volunteer force until the next municipal elections in April.
Is that "awkward and stupid," per lk in 43? Maybe. But it's something concrete that I, personally, can actually do. And there are opportunities like this everywhere, if you're willing to seek them out.
No no, those are organized organizations with structure! By no means awkward or stupid. I was talking about this completely ad hoc thing: there are probably over a million subscribers to the mailing list, and I have no idea what criteria have selected the 19 people who will show up (er, have showed up -- I guess it was tonight) in a room in the El Sobrante library to talk about Resistance. This is not my first rodeo and a lot of the earlier rodeos involved the Green Party, so you know. There are undoubtedly better opportunities than that, but they are not going to appear in my inbox.
Surely you have organized organizations with structure in your area that you could seek out even if they don't appear in your inbox.
Of course. I'm sorry if my comments seemed overly woeful. This isn't an actual problem. That is, a) I had doubts about one event and b) in general I am troubled, but I have a general sense of what to do from here too.
Don't worry about it. You were fine, it's just that the thread as a whole has been infuriating in a bunch of ways.
Wiki:
A constitutional crisis is a situation that a legal system's constitution or other basic principles of operation appear unable to resolve; it often results in a breakdown in the orderly operation of government. Often, generally speaking, a constitutional crisis is a situation in which separate factions within a government disagree about the extent to which each of these factions hold sovereignty.
Yes, usually a Const Crisis happens within the law and state and revolves around conflicting interpretations of the law. Sovereignty is a more legal matter than legitimacy. In that case, the Trump inauguration appears unquestionably legal, except perhaps the emoluments problem mentioned above.
Which is maybe why I used the small-c "constitutional crisis."
But the American Constitution is in no small measure based on geography, states, and is not set up to handle a radical geographical conflict between factions. As in the American Civil War, and as in the Big Sort/Big Split we are currently experiencing.
Stirling Newberry calls it a Constitutional Crisis
I agree, the big sort is a fucking terminal problem that a popular gov't has no means to correct.
(Barely recommended, and try to be kinder than the some commenters, who perhaps are unaware that Newberry is still recovering from a massive stroke that left him aphasic for months.)
I'm not hung up on the words "constitutional crisis." Here is the issue as I see it. A person is required to swear an oath to respect and uphold the constitution as a condition for assuming office. You don't become president automatically with no further action when you win the vote, you're also required to swear the oath of office. Trump can't truthfully swear the oath, and this is not a problem hidden deep in his heart of hearts, but a very public and known conflict that prevents him from truthfully taking the oath.
Where does that leave things? I assume we would not allow Trump the assume office if he just said, "I can't and won't swear the oath to the constitution."* But how exactly is it any different if he swears the oath but everyone knows he is lying when doing so? Not suspects; knows. He has been very public and transparent about this fact.
* is this a safe assumption? Who exactly would prevent him from assuming office? How? Because that's effectively the situation we are in. Those same mechanisms--whatever they are--should be implemented now.
(I think the answer is that the oath of office is not required to be upheld if the house is unwilling to impeach you for violating it. Maybe in that case it's not even required to be sworn in the first place. Those were the checks and balances the founders envisioned. They are broken.)
Jeez, people. Megan, I thought you were the politically savvy technocrat here. Take a look at recent developments in Turkey (or for that matter, Russia 1991). If you want to preserve the status quo against a potential autocrat, the last thing you want to have happen is a failed coup in defense of the status quo, which is what Obama attempting to block Trump's inauguration by extra-constitutional means would become. That just gives the potential autocrat the green light to consolidate power into his own hands, while the opposition is too fragmented to effectively oppose him.
If there is one thing we can hope for, it is that by carefully preserving the norms of peaceful transfer of power, when the Republicans massively fuck up the government and are seen to have done so by the electorate, Trump will in turn feel obliged to pass the mantle of power peacefully to his duly elected successor. That's not a guarantee. Republicans have been fucking with traditional norms for a while now. But we have some reason to believe that they won't be willing to cross that particular line, unless Democrats are seen as doing it first. So don't give them that excuse. Document, document, document every single thing they do to fuck up the government over the next 2-4 years, and hope that will be enough to sway enough marginal voters back, even in the face of voter suppression efforts.
I think you could make two perfectly reasonable arguments that Trump wouldn't be breaking the clause in question at all. It says "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State".
So, first of all, Congress gets to decide whether it's OK or not. It is not an absolute prohibition. The president can accept as many presents, emoluments etc. as he likes, as long as he clears it with Congress. Congress has already exercised its power under this clause with the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, which is how come Obama didn't have to resign when, say, the Prime Minister of Estonia gave him that engraved pen or whatever. Congress is at liberty to act, or not, in subsequent cases. I'm thinking "not".
Second, arguing that Trump is going to be in breach of this clause implies that you interpret "present, Emolument, Office or Title" to include all payments for goods or services commercially obtained. So, if a president writes a book in office, and the Edinburgh City Library buys a copy, then boom! That $1.50 royalty on that copy of the book is an Emolument from a Foreign State! Impeachment time! Or a president can keep his family farm in upstate New York going, and sell apples from his orchard, but the moment that the vacationing Bulgarian Naval Attaché buys one of those apples, impeachment time!
Norman Eisen, who was Obama's chief ethics lawyer:
""Whenever Mr. Trump receives anything from a foreign sovereign, to the extent that it's not an arm's-length transaction," Mr. Eisen said, "every dollar in excess that they pay over the fair market price will be a dollar paid in violation of the Emoluments Clause and will be a present to Mr. Trump."
Every dollar over the fair market price. Which makes sense. The Bulgarian naval attaché buying an apple isn't going to endanger the republic. Buying an apply for $500,000, though, that could be a bit dodgy.
But who's to say what the fair market price is?
All of which is not to say that he won't face absolutely enormous and damaging conflicts of interest. (Not that he will regard them as such; using one of your brands to promote another is simply good business sense. It's just that in this case one of the brands is "being president".)
But you can't really argue, without stretching the language way beyond reasonable limits, that a president running a business which has foreign states among its customers is a breach of the emoluments clause.
If you want to preserve the status quo against a potential autocrat, the last thing you want to have happen is a failed coup in defense of the status quo, which is what Obama attempting to block Trump's inauguration by extra-constitutional means would become. That just gives the potential autocrat the green light to consolidate power into his own hands, while the opposition is too fragmented to effectively oppose him.
This is a good point.
Far as I can tell, the way we're going to respond to crisis is to give away our existing power to an unstable touchy asshole, and then resist real hard when he does something terrible. This is a fucking awful plan.
I am absolutely in agreement here, the problem is that I don't see any better options. Megan, I'm glad you are hashing out the options, but so far none are clearing the bar. Keep hashing, and its possible we can stumble upon one that does.
I view undemocratic/unconstitutional means to stop Trump from assuming office to pose less risk to America and the world than 4-8 years of a Trump administration. I think an unwillingness to consider that is a grave underestimation of the danger posed by a Trump administration. But any resistance needs to have a high likelihood of success to be worthwhile. I fully agree that a failed coup would be a disaster.
FWIW I didn't feel that way on election night. I worried that Trump would be an existential risk, but I hoped he would prove not to be. But everything he's done since the election has resolved any doubt about this.
So far, none are clearing the bar just because they sound silly. But that's a circular argument. If some with a nice demeanor said, I think we should really consider a transition government run by the Supreme Court while we get our voting systems in order for the next two years, and it sounded serious, then all of a sudden momentum would change.
Honestly, in this climate, I cannot believe that people can say "that wouldn't fly". Apparently, ANYTHING flies, and we've seen it.
I think there are two simultaneous campaigns, one to cast doubt on the election. Suppose the Detroit voting machines audit gets legs, and Michigan withholds its electoral college votes. And the word treason starts to appear everywhere. People just need a tipping point to decide this is all too weird and they want somewhere to go.
So on the other side, there's giving them an alternative. Which isn't going to happen if people refuse to consider unusual or unconstitutional options, even if those are only as weird as our goddamn current circumstances.
FWIW, while I don't really believe Pres. Obama will do anything, I also think that if he does something, it'll work. My sense is that he is too cautious to initiate a new structure unless he already has the pieces in place.
Keep hashing, and its possible we can stumble upon one that does.
I don't see anyone but me offering options. Lots of naysayers, though.
The option is to win in 2018, 2020, etc. I don't see any other plan.
I guess it comes down to whether you agree with 242 or not. If you agree, waiting until 2018 and 2020 is a bad plan.
What do you think are the chances that we'll have free elections in 2020 if Trump is still president then? And if you don't think Trump will still be president, what is the mechanism for that? Do you really believe the Republican Congress would impeach him when they'll haven't taken umbrage to everything we've seen so far?
One of the things in that piece in 44 is that Trump is deeply hostile to the CIA. There's a slim chance they'll find a way to burn down his administration in self-defense.
In the timeline I was born in, I'd be a conservative instead of the raging far-out liberal that I am in this alternate universe. (I'm still trying to figure out how I got here. My guess is that the original split took place in 1980.)
So I'm afraid that I won't be onboard for Megan's coup. Procedural liberalism isn't much, but it's pretty much all we've got left, and Iraq taught us about the problems with trying to force people to be small "d" democrats.
And -- being a conservative on Earth Prime -- I am deeply suspicious of people who want to take a sledgehammer to complex systems with the aim of fixing them. (I realize that conservatives aren't like that in this world.)
Anyway, any coup is going to come from the military-industrial complex, not procedural liberals like Obama. And when the military is ready, they'll just go ahead. They won't be looking for permission from us.
I disagree with 251. The split must have been in the late 70s not 1980.
I would be interested to know what form Obama's appointment of an interrex, as Megan suggests, would take that wouldn't lead to Trump, Pence and Roberts, as well as the apparatus of the state, simply ignoring them and carrying on with the inauguration as before. Possibly arresting Obama, possibly not bothering.
Yeah, and I get reassured "don't worry, the CIA will find a way to assassinate him". As if that's better than a unConstitutional way to preserve the government for a couple years, or facing up to the unrest of eliminating the electoral college.
Anyway, time to make breakfast here. Back after a while.
I'm going to have chicken tenders and fries for lunch, because my palate is still 12.
I have little to no faith in the "let him fuck up and the people will rise in righteous anger to throw the bums out." The next 2-4 years will see the final entrenchment of totally parallel worlds of facts- I think Trump Media is still a possibility- and huge numbers of voters will believe anything presented to them regardless of reality. I'm not just talking about "Obamacare ruined the market which is why when we repealed it the entire insurance market exploded" I'm talking about things with no logic or connection to reality- "Dems passed a bill to pay off the mortgages of all black people which is why your bank foreclosed on you." Until now conspiracy theories had to have at least some tenuous link to reality- the WTC actually was attacked on 9/11- but the kinds of totally out-of-the-blue things that had been on the fringe will be believed by a majority of voters. Things involving totally invented events, made-up legislation, possibly even people that don't exist will be accepted as news and a reason to support Trump.
Procedural liberalism isn't much, but it's pretty much all we've got left
Yup. I feel like the only protection we have is the rule of law. After that is the deluge.
If a coup can be accomplished within a legal framework (such as the electoral college or legitimate powers of SCOTUS) I can support it. But if its a choice of either deserting the rule of law or throwing the dice on effective institutional resistance to the new regime, I opt for the dice.
The only part of 259 that I disagree with is that a "majority of voters" will believe this stuff. I mean, even now Trump's approval ratings are around 40%. I don't think that 10+ percent of voters are going to think he's a clown but simultaneously believe Trump-endorsed fake news.
That said, the mainstream press has been so awful that I have my doubts about all of this.
There is a very good chance that Trump will do such a shitty job of being President that it will be blatantly obvious to everyone, regardless of media spin. If he starts a trade war with China that leads to empty shelves at WalMart and a massive recession, people are going to notice and they won't be very happy about it.
A hamster that could hold a butter knife would actually be a fairly intimidating hamster, as hamsters go. I might quietly sidle away from it myself.
BTW, I've read many comments, pretty much everywhere, that since the House has final say on the EC vote, trying to sway the EC is pointless. IMO that's incredibly narrow-minded, acting as if any action that doesn't definitively keep Trump from office is pointless.
But the goal--failing actually keeping him out--is delegitimization. With Republicans in full control, literally the only (governmental) things that can be done in the short term will require peeling Rs away from Trump. And the less legitimate he seems, the easier that will be to do. Yes, they'll vote in lockstep for awful things, but that would be true under any R president. What we need is for them to break ranks on the part of the Trump agenda that are truly dangerous. Beyond that, delegitimization increases the odds of resistance by other parts of the government, and decreases the odds of successful conversion to authoritarianism.
But even on a simpler basis, there's this: cynics say, "Why bother when he would take office despite an EC revolt?" But since the cynics are conceding the inauguration, which is better: inauguration after an unprecedented EC revolt and cynical House overturning of the EC, or a politics-as-usual process that whitewashes all of the irregularities?
Cosign 260.
254: To be clear, I wasn't advocating a CIA coup, just pointing out yet another disaster that might be in our future.
The problem is the media as constructed aren't capable of addressing every false report out there. As we saw, in a lot of cases they actually amplify it- Oh, hadn't heard of Comet Sex Ring, but if the NYT is denying it, there must be something to it. Prior to alternate media channels there weren't many options for mass distribution of totally fake things- AM radio, newsletters- so the consensus reality was based primarily on traditional media such as TV and newspapers. If you have an entirely separate content invention and distribution channel, supported by an adversarial state, there's nothing traditional media can do about it. And honestly the financial incentives tilt in favor of just making shit up- no reporters to pay, more clicks because you're the "exclusive" source of whatever pops into your head or out of your ass that day.
since the House has final say on the EC vote, trying to sway the EC is pointless
I suspect that the House's support for Trump is broad, but not deep. There are three factions - Democrats, Tea Partiers, and establishment Republicans. Who is to say that the establishment Republicans and Democrats could not conspire together to install, say, Lindsay Graham?
No. I think any long-term solution to the political problems of the United States involves the Republican Party blowing up, but there's no way that happens so soon.
The establishment Republicans clearly haven't hit bottom yet. And I think they'll dig for a long time after they hit bottom.
I am deeply suspicious of people who want to take a sledgehammer to complex systems with the aim of fixing them.
And I keep telling ya, Marxism isn't about creating a Utopia, it is about preventing an apocalypse. It isn't an optimism, but a pessimism (of the intellect.) It doesn't rely on a rosy view of human nature, but on the dire necessity, unto great violence and sacrifice, of removing some of the material means of oppression.
Watched yet another, Nowhere in Africa where a German Jewish family moves to Kenya in 1937, losing everything.
Family Patriarch keeps telling them, hey Hitler has to follow the law, this won't last so long, saner minds will see how crazy it is and take care of him. Don't leave!
Can you guess the end of the story?
The lawyer turned cattle wrangler left instead of fighting because it was no use trying to convince the complacent and trusting, and nothing could be done without them. Of course eventually people said Holy Shit I was so wrong but too late for them and of course the millions of others they could have saved if they had been a little less comfortable in their judgements.
But so very many of the complacent survived and prospered eventually, didn't they? They didn't fight, or do very bad things or something, and the others died.
Some kind of innocence was preserved.
The establishment Republicans clearly haven't hit bottom yet.
The thing about that scenario is that it gives them a choice between digging more to hit bottom, and installing one of their own as POTUS.
I know which one I'd pick, but, then again, I'm not an establishment Republican.
I think 268-9 are right, but it happening soon can't be ruled out. This election has shown how complex and unstable the system is.
I am bitterly amused at myself for thinking this, after my long history of federalism-hating, but where I have hope, it's in the state governments of the sane states. New York, California, and the rest, fucked up as they all are themselves, are large organizations with control of money, personnel, and infrastructure. that are going to have some capacity to protect their residents from anti-democratic federal actions and some capacity of simply remaining in contact with reality.
I'm not sure what I'm hoping for specifically, but there's a limit to what the federal government can do within an uncooperative state if they're not prepared to use military force.
A few enthusiastic supporters notwithstanding, I don't believe Trump has much loyalty among Republicans in congress. They're worried about him, and by and large they'd be happy to resist him. The problem is that the entire party is scared to death of their own base, and they're not willing to put themselves on the line to oppose him. They've been watching tea party "outsiders" topple mainstream conservatives in election after election since 2010, and they now collectively believe (not incorrectly) that standing up for sanity and responsible governance is a sure fire way to lose a primary election. So almost no one is willing to stand up for those things. This is craven on their part, of course, but also understandable. By and large, the problem in this particular instance isn't really Republican politicians. The problem is Republican voters.
(That's why I said upthread that opposition to Trump will come fast and furious as soon as it's politically convenient--likely after the first major scandal/catastrophe. But it has to be something that shakes his popularity not just with the country overall but also with the core Republican base. Until then, there will be little or no opposition.)
I don't agree with 275 - I think they're starting to see him as convenient and manipulatable.
273.1, if it becomes true at scale in any meaningful way, will cause significant migration of right-thinking people into already deep blue states (for their own welfare), further cementing Republican electoral control.
Of course I wouldn't put it beyond Trump to just instruct his agencies to entirely cut off funding from state programs that piss him off. Oh, I'm sorry CA, did we forget to transfer the $7B we owed your for transportation? Take it to court and maybe you'll see it in 5 years, until then have fun funding your roads via tolls and bake sales.
277: totally agree. That's not loyalty.
The thing about that scenario is that it gives them a choice between digging more to hit bottom
The smart tyrant makes people complicit, exactly like the Mafia nominee making his bones with a murder. Make your followers dependent on you surviving, knowing if you fall they die or go to prison. Trump lack of divestment is a start here.
In Germany, I suspect the start was the Night of the Long Knives, when a lot of people knew what was happening and looked the other way.
276: No, I've been showing up at work. Remember, I'm a midlevel state government bureaucrat.
Help us midlevel state government bureaucrat, you're our only hope.
Of course, part of Obama's service was not prosecuting bankers or Bushites, thereby setting a precedent and providing assurance.
My guess is that Trump will start with incredible corruption, enough of it illegal to instill loyalty for the rougher stuff to come.
279: serious question: what actually happens here, and has it ever happened before? I know that the federal government can use funding as a club against states - things like "impose a speed limit or we won't give you highway funding", that sort of thing. But have the feds ever just refused to transfer money to which a state is entitled? And if so, what remedy? Can a state court grant compensation (say, seizing federal government assets within the state)?
Can a state court grant compensation (say, seizing federal government assets within the state)?
I hope not. Whatever the reason for the first time that happens, the second will be to sell a national park to somebody who wants to strip mine it.
285: This is complicated by 'what does entitled mean'. Under the supremacy clause, Federal law trumps state law. So there's no such thing as entitled to anything that a state isn't entitled to by federal law.
If a federal executive agency withheld funds that a state was entitled to by federal law -- that is, if the federal agency were disobeying the US Congress? State courts can apply federal law, certainly, but there are going to be sovereign immunity issues about suing the feds, and I haven't worked on those, so I don't have answers at my fingertips.
I view undemocratic/unconstitutional means to stop Trump from assuming office to pose less risk to America and the world than 4-8 years of a Trump administration.
So, having validated using these means as a way to overturn election results, are you planning to create a dictatorship afterward? Because once you "mainstream" an idea like that, and win, all bets are off in the future. Other people and parties less scrupulous than you will be doing it too, seeing how you got away with it. That strikes me as a bigger risk than the utterly speculative fears of what Trump might do as President.
If you are planning to abandon democracy and the constitution, you might as well support Trump's most vile supporters and get it over with.
'what does entitled mean'
Walks into Starbucks and is offended that the barista doesn't remember their usual order.
On the "will Trump step down if he loses an election?" front, I was very heartened that Republicans refused to play along with McCrory's attempted coup in North Carolina. Maybe there's some hope that there is a line that they won't cross.
Trump will benefit by the self-concentration of his enemies on the coasts.
Bannon. Sessions. Trump keeps Mein Kampf by his bedside.
Y'all are still in denial, "it can't happen here."
Failing to pay people he legitimately owes money to is literally Donald Trump's main skill in life.
I'm not at all in denial about "it can't happen here." I just know enough history about when it happened there to know the Marxists were worse than useless at stopping it.
Trump is not a healthy man, 70 years old, and possibly already sliding into senility. There is a strong chance he isn't going to last 8 years in that office.
Oh, fuck the slippery slopes. We are not like them. Lots of countries had tyrants, violently deposed, and then returned to democracy or sane oligopoly or benevolent monarchy. Some, multiple times.
Anybody even read Shakespeare? "Let us talk of the death of kings."
After Rick Two, England was a hellhole unto the present day. Gimme a break.
287.2 is what I was getting at. Thanks.
Trump will benefit by the self-concentration of his enemies on the coasts.
They will be easy prey for his allies, the Deep Ones, who will come silently creeping ashore through the surf when the moon has set.
Which reminds me that the Piketty-influenced roleplaying game scenario was a great hit, as was the followup which (hello Megan) revolved mainly around water rights and water treatment. I asked for suggestions from the group for the next one, and apparently I now have to write "something like Whisky Galore but with more Cthulhu".
Of course it will need a mad old NPC who keeps gibbering about hideous conspiracies and impending doom.
The feds can and do remove any and all actions brought in state court against the government and its officers to federal court. 28 U.S.C. 1442(a).
287.2 is what I was positing, based on 292. I imagine a long drawn-out court process of the states suing a federal agency- Trump knows that the delays involved in seeking legal remedy often hurt the weaker party, even if you lose/settle in the end.
300: Beyond horrific. Once again I find myself wishing, as absurd as it was, that history really had ended. If only we had--could have?--done something effective to stop it.
I read it already fell and Assad's people were going house to house killing civilians. I figured those were the first mass deaths partially attributable to the U.S. election results.
301: I really doubt it would have been so brutal if they didn't know Putin's candidate was going to be in the White House.
The Morning Star is apparently referring to it as "Final liberation of Aleppo is in sight".
298: Yeah, that's the sort of thing I'd have known offhand if I'd ever sued the feds, but I figured there must be something. I've had a completely defensive career up till now.
I will say that the situation would have to get really pretty advanced before the states couldn't win a lawsuit against the federal government in federal court if the rights ans wrongs were clear -- that is, Trump would either have to be getting lucky with judicial assignments, or he'd have to be replacing judges wholesale unconstitutionally.
The Constitution requires retailing judges.
Wait, are we really mourning ISIS and al-nusra here?
Christ. I'm gone.
And no, I am not believing your sources. There are so many gov't lies attached to Syria anymore.
And no, I don't believe RT either. Gonna go check Pat Lang.
283. Many a true word spoken in jest. At least (so far) the miidlevel state bureaucrats haven't had their loyalty to the system undermined by rampant hyperinflation.
259 to 308.
306- But what's the timeline even when the rights and wrongs are clear? Certainly enough to derail major projects, make states incur additional costs of mothballing things while waiting for legally promised funding? That's Trump's method- use the courts as a weapon not because you think you'll win but because the process necessary to get compensation is itself sufficient to punish those you don't like.
via Sic Semper Tyrannis
BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:15 P.M.) - The jihadist rebels of Fatah Halab and Jaysh Al-Fateh have accepted terms of surrender in east Aleppo after withstanding a two month long siege imposed by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their allies.Per the agreement put in place, the jihadist rebels and all civilians will be allowed safe passage from the east Aleppo pocket to the 'Anadan plains near Mount Simeon - no activists, civilians, or jihadists will be arrested.
This agreement was put in place after the jihadist rebels retreated from the strategic Sheikh Sa'eed District, which was considered one of the last strongholds for Jaysh Al-Fateh and their allies.
While the proposal has been accepted by all sides, the Syrian Arab Army has yet to enter any of these neighborhoods; this is due to the fact that many jihadists have not yet left the area.
Once the pocket is officially cleared, the Syrian Armed Forces will be able to concentrate their ground units to the southern Aleppo countryside, where Hezbollah is awaiting to launch an offensive along the Aleppo-Idlib Highway.
Don't stop beating those drums for War with Russia, folks. Obama still has time.
This country has gone universally crazy.
Procedural liberalism isn't much, but it's pretty much all we've got left
But we don't have it, or there would be nine Supreme Court Justices right now.
Wait, are you relying on al-jazerra, the Qatari gov't organ?
Qatar FM: The War will Continue
mohammed142857
"The Qatar minister on one hand says want to get rid of Assad and on the other hand says want to have a peaceful solution. The current problem in Syria is caused by rebels who with the support of others* tried to overthrow syrian govt. And the damage has been done. Extremists like ISIS benefited from this war. Now the option for rebel is to surrender and people of Syria can rebuilt their country."
*Obama/Clinton. Saudi Arabia. Qatar. Turkey.
God love the peace-loving unfoggedetariat.
PS: I wouldn't be astounded at massacres, Assad and Putin are monsters, but as far as I am concerned its monsters everywhere and we shouldn't have been helping the jihadists. Libya, in part, was the impoundment of an arsenal to ship to Syria.
Tillerson now officially nominee for SecState. Judging by the Russian reaction he's literally bought and paid for.
310(b) -- If a district judge gets offended, things can move pretty fast. If the rights and wrongs are clear. And if there's jurisdiction.
Rick Perry for DOE. I'm so fucked.
I had no idea he was even still around.
Establishment Republican hair/Tea Party thinking.
I had no idea he was even still around.
He wears glasses now. That means he's smart.
Oh, and however you feel about the policy, one thing is absolutely certain.
With Syria, we can now chalk up yet another pathetic contemptible failure to Obama as he zooms to the top of the list of Worst Presidents Ever.
But what's the timeline even when the rights and wrongs are clear? Certainly enough to derail major projects, make states incur additional costs of mothballing things while waiting for legally promised funding? That's Trump's method- use the courts as a weapon not because you think you'll win but because the process necessary to get compensation is itself sufficient to punish those you don't like.
That won't work with states, though. States routinely pursue litigation that drags on for decades. And they're not generally heavily reliant on federal funding for operating funds.
DOE is refusing to respond to the Trump transition questionnaire, btw. Not sure how the Perry pick fits into all that.
264 makes sense to me (contra my 110).
322: Good. It's a fucking McCarthist fishing expedition to weed out all the non-crazies on climate change. Nice to see some push back.
I don't have a good sense of what Perry at DOE is likely to mean for the DOE programs I work with personally. Such a weird choice.
Not as weird as Kanye for FEMA.
Kanye's going to play the fucking inauguration, isn't he? Scab.
326: Or Carly Fiorina for Director of National Intelligence, which is an actual rumor that has shown up in some reports.
Although the weirdest actual one so far has got to be Ben Carson for HUD.
329: What part of "urban" do you not understand?
He should totally have gone with Kanye.
A tweet from my daughter the other day which I think will turn out to be spot on:
Trump's administration won't be authoritarian, openly corrupt, etc in the ways we think. It'll be a freaking parody of those things.
Not an Airplane! quality parody. It will be Epic Movie or worse.
So this is generally contrary to my current view, I still think it makes some good points. As a Muslim I think I have good reason to freak out about a proposed registry though. http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/
Looks like I picked a bad day to start believing in the American system.
I switched from bourbon to Irish whisky as part of my own personal #NotMyPresident thing.
Moon of Alabama shows a fake shot from Aleppo apparently going round twitter and MSM.
Guess Democrats, as evidenced above thread, are loving their fake news, isolated in their tight bubbles, surrounded by people like them, not so formally different from Republicans.
Don't have any idea what to do about this. I am sure that most won't click on the link, and won't believe what they see even if they do. "Horrors of Aleppo" is a socially mandatory narrative to keep your friends.
As I have said, I retain sanity by abandoning sociality, by being oppositional wherever I am. If that is sanity, which is a social concept anyway.
Possibly of local interest: Tonight I got a robo-survey that was trying to see if the mayor of our suburb commemorating less-glorious moments in British military history could challenge our incumbent Congressman.
I retain sanity by abandoning sociality
Did really check that?
338: I doubt it. It'd be a Dem own-goal, anyway. Not only is Doyle well-connected, he's a consistent lefty. My wife and I had been going over this: said mayor is going somewhere, but there aren't many places to go up to. My best guess is County Executive; isn't the incumbent term limited? Even then, though, I'm torn as to whether I think he could appeal to suburbanites. On one hand, he's weird. On the other, he's a showboater who has given everyone ample opportunities to get used to his weirdness.
I told them I wouldn't vote against Doyle.
334
I do think he's right that the reason to fear Trump is not because he will make things measurably worse for minorities and that there is basically no evidence that he himself is racist or that he will implement explicitly racist policies (deporting illegal immigrants is arguably bad policy on practical and moral grounds, but it isn't necessarily racist). The reason to fear Trump is that he will do a million awful things by virtue of being venal and lazy and ignorant and in bed with Republicans. And that he will encourage and allow Republicans to do Republican things that will make our country notably worse.
Oh, and that he allow and encourage Republicans to continue to push for their de facto racist policies that are not blatantly racist enough to get the press and polite society to call them racist.
there is basically no evidence that he himself is racist
Wait, what?
From the link in 344: And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks.
That's some undiluted accept-no-substitutes solid gold racism right there. I love that he's excusing they guy by saying he's inferior. The casual antisemitism in the full quote is pretty striking, too.
334 is impressively contrarian and wrong. "He can't be racist! He said he likes black people! And surely no racist would ever say that while running for president. No sir, racists have integrity."
CNN is being really hard on Trump. They are showing the Perry choking video over and over. Also commenting on the whiteness and maleness of the Trump cabinet picks. Basically they are doing what they should have been doing for the last year or so.
I continue to believe it's a major strategic mistake for Democrats to be so focused on Trump's exceptionalism instead of painting him as the natural culmination of Republicanism (and so forcing other Republicans either to distance themselves from him or to be tarred by him). Major mistake during the campaign, major mistake now.
348: A simulated departure lounge in my living room. I watch CNN occasionally thanks to a deep seated self hatred.
Avoiding self-awareness is the secret to avoiding self hatred, at least for me.
I can't do that. I contain multitudes, but not a liquor store.
I switched from bourbon to Irish whisky as part of my own personal #NotMyPresident thing
I put Freedom dressing on my reuben sandwiches.
336, etc. as well as the 348, etc.: One of the snacks on the Aer Lingus flight back from Dublin was some surprisingly good chives-flavored pretzels from "Penn State" brand, based in England. In my sleep-deprived state I thought they were better than Snyder's of Hanover and Snyder's of Berlin. I suppose I'll have to switch to them.
I can't read Aer Lingus without thinking it refers to showing someone how to go down on a woman by licking the air.
Penn State-brand pretzels. So good, you'll never report them no matter what the crime you witness.
You always were an erring linguist.
357: It's such a weird half-assed Anglicization, since in current standard Irish orthography it's "Aer Loingeas". If you're going to change it, why not at least change "aer" to "air"?
But yeah, it's the air guitar of sex.
I just looked up what it means - somehow it never occurred to me before.
You're kidding. The name of Ireland's national airline is literally just "Airline"? I suppose it's not the only one - Aeroflot. But still!
All flag carriers are like that: Air France, British Airways, etc etc. The Irish just did it more elegantly, by indicating national identity with nothing but orthography.
I'd prefer to use the Foclóir G-B's definition 2b, "air band of sea rovers."
And it's better than the fact that the USA has had at least as many as three independent airlines whose names all just imply they have something to do with America. (US Air, American, United, arguably PanAm and Continental, etc.)
I still think "Lufthansa" is a pretty cool name, but that's because I don't really know what "Hansa" means and would prefer to imagine it's an airborne resurrection of the Hanseatic League.
"Lufthansa like the ceiling can't hold us."
Why is that a problem. If you look at a list of flag carriers a large plurality are "Ruritanian Airlines/Airways" and half the rest are "Air Ruritania". Translating it into your own little known language and leaving people to work it out for themselves seems quite an imaginative approach in context.
It is, pretty much - Lufthansa was named after the Hanseatic League.
I can't think of many flag carriers that aren't some variation on "[Name of Country] Airline". Qantas and Gulf Air, I suppose. Garuda. United - it's not named after the US, it's because it's a lot of merged airlines.
Iberia. Used to be SABENA, which was apparently an acronym for Societé Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne, so I'm not sure if it makes the cut. Anyway they went bust.
Bhutan's is "Druk Air", where "Druk" seems to be "dragon." Good name for a airline from the evil empire in David Eddings's books. Or Shadowrun. Or the Dark Sun D&D setting.
367: I guy I knew who flew SABENA insisted that it stood for "Such A Bloody Experience, Never Again." Probably why they went bust.
369: it absolutely is and more airlines should be named after the mythical flying animal associated with their home nation. There's already a Dragon Air and a Pegasus Air out there but, as far as I know, Fury, Harpy, Griffon, Hippogriff, Wyvern, Night-Gaunt, Manticore, Cockatrice, Phoenix, Roc, Djinn, Simurgh and Gargoyle are still available.
Honestly I wouldn't fly on any mythical beast known for going up in flames. Or turning people into stone. Or having weird trickster check-in policies.
Actually, on checking, Phoenix Air also exists. Nor is it called that because it's based in Phoenix.
Or having weird trickster check-in policies.
Ah, you've flown Sphinx International, I see.
Latin American flag carriers are required to have four-letter names. Copa in Panama, Tame in Ecuador, Taca in El Salvador.
What gets four thousand points in the morning, two thousand in the afternoon, and their luggage mysteriously rerouted through Detroit in the evening?
http://www.theonion.com/video/pragues-franz-kafka-international-named-worlds-mos-14321
"Sir, did you pack these bags yourself? If not, were they packed by someone who only packs the bags of people who do not pack their own bags? If so, who packs her bags?"
"We are now only boarding passengers who are confident about what colour of hat they are wearing. Please remain silent during the boarding process."
THIS, on every possible front. Win first, debate procedural liberalism second.
THIS, on every possible front. Win first, debate procedural liberalism second.
I like Dahlia Lithwick, but I feel like this comparison:
This is what happened in 2000. When Florida was still undecided after election night, the Republicans didn't leave their fate in the hands of individuals or third-party candidates. No, they recruited former Secretary of State James A. Baker III to direct efforts on behalf of George W. Bush. They framed their project as protecting Mr. Bush's victory rather than counting votes. They were clear, consistent and forceful, with the biggest names in Republican politics working the process.
Leaves out the fact that Bush was (eventually) named the winner of FL on election night. The legal arguments over the recount were absurd, but calling it a victory on election night wasn't -- I actually am confident that, in a similar situation, a Democractic politician would also be saying, "We are proud to have won, and we aren't going to let anybody stand in the way of voice of the people and take our victory away."
I think this situation, in which the vote on election day was clear and favored Trump by a whisker, but in which there are other confounding factors is much more difficult.
I don't want that to just be an argument for, "do nothing." I'd love to have a good plan for what to do, but I don't think there's an obvious path.
Do all the paths, figure out which one worked after the threat is over.
(Heh. I am about to have to leave, so when I disappear, that's why.)
Do all the paths, figure out which one worked after the threat is over.
Not a bad idea, but you can't be surprised if other people don't go along with that.
That's my reaction to that linked editorial -- I'd be happy if Democrats did act in that way; but I also understand why any given politician wouldn't find that convincing.
As a grande finale to 2016, 37 Trump electors will vote for Clinton but that Bernie supporting jackass from Oregon declines to support Hillary and the House still gives it to Trump.
Nah, they all vote for Bernie. With Mike Pence as VP. Thus allowing the even more shocking second part of the finale when Bernie has a sudden heart attack.
381/383: you can quibble with the historical comparison to 2000 if you want, but come on: do you really think that if the party roles were reversed this year--with Trump having won the national popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, Clinton having won a highly unexpected whisper thin electoral college majority thanks to three states controlled by Democrats (which can't be recounted due court challenges brought by Clinton, plus "errors" with voting machines on election day that prevent recounting), the FBI having broken its own internal policies to interfere just before the election by spreading false allegations against Trump (because, it turns out, there was a faction within the FBI that was militantly pro-Clinton and willing to go rogue if necessary to see her win), with RNC emails having been hacked by Russia with the encouragement and cooperation of Clinton and the Democrats, and damaging emails from that hack disseminated to the media throughout the campaign--do you really think the Republican party would be taking this all so passively??
Because I don't. Not for a minute. That's the point of the editorial.
It's actually laughable how inconceivable it is to me that the official Republican party line in that scenario would just be a resigned "well, it's unfortunate but she won according to the official rules of the game, so there's nothing that can be done, we'll try again in 2020."
Trump basically said, in the debate, that he would not accept the results of an election that looked like this, if he was on the losing side.
386/87: Okay, I'll bite. What do the Republicans do? I entirely agree with you that they'd be raising hell, but even in the bare scenario where Trump wins the popular vote by 3 million votes but loses in the EC, what does he do? Has the GOP actually set up a row of dominos that they can knock down in this situation? Would they tolerate the inauguration but aim for immediate impeachment? Would they demand a runoff a la Austria?
389 gets it exactly right. Yes, of course the GOP would be as ruthless as possible in trying to take power under any circumstances whatsoever. But what does that mean in practice? And is it something the Dems could actually replicate in the parallel situation? The parties aren't actually equivalent in lots of ways.
Honestly, they're better at this kind of stuff than we are. They would think of something we wouldn't. The Brook Brothers riot in 2000 is a good example.
390, 391: Yes, look at North Carolina right now.
Different levers at the national level but they would use them all. Debt ceiling for instance.
Fallacy of Post-Truth ...Jacobin, about fake news, by a Danish perfesser
The technocratic obsession with facts, however, rests on a post-truth premise. It starts from the belief that economic liberalism's values -- the right to private property, the valorization of self-interest, and formal freedom without material equality -- best describe human nature. On this basis, liberal economics devotes itself to realizing human nature in history, defining that movement as progress.
Nice. Succinct.
391: ,i>The Brook Brothers riot in 2000 is a good example.
#2,368 of the zillion ongoing furies I have at the press the way this was treated as "ironic" and "adorable." But maybe they were right; whenever in history have mobs of "respectable" white men ever engaged in dangerous extrajudicial activities?
If somebody wants to have a riot against Trump, I will show up wearing Brooks Brothers clothing.
Okay, I'll bite. What do the Republicans do? I entirely agree with you that they'd be raising hell, but even in the bare scenario where Trump wins the popular vote by 3 million votes but loses in the EC, what does he do?
For starters, they'd be actively paying off and courting electors to defect. Giving them Hawaii vacations and stock options and having them sit and chat to borderline stalking. Next there would have been 500 frivolous lawsuits filed within a week, on the illegitimacy of Clinton's victory. This would get a newscycle going that it was newsworthy to question Clinton's legitimacy. They'd set up SuperPacs and be soliciting donations and have a marketing campaign around #IllegitimateClinton or whatever. Trump's victory lap tour would be a bitter grapes tour. Basically, the presidential campaign would not have ended for them.
They'd get dumb-ass Senators like Cruz to filibuster-for-freedom, to drag their feet on whether or not to vote to for bathroom breaks, to have sit-ins and read Green Eggs & Ham and how this is a War on Christmas. It would be a living hell.
The conversation in the US would shift and Democrats would be totally defensive and capitulatory about their win. Every single sentence that any Dem utters would begin with, "I can understand where you're coming from! Believe me, I can understand why you're mad and why you think Clinton is not legit!" They'd spend so much time validating RNC anger that they'd never actually get to the original point. Ever again.
There would be non-stop histrionics - "We can't go on December Recess!" There'd be ticking time bomb memes all over the place, ticking to January 20th. There'd be walk outs and insufficient numbers for quorums in state governments. It would be like when you're at the grocery store and your two year old throws a tantrum in the middle of automatic doors and you're super pregnant and your arms are full and you literally lack the ability to pick them up and move them out of the throngs of people and your hands are tied, and you're so embarrassed for the shit show and can't get them to stop wailing.
At the inauguration, they'd wear some weird color in solidarity (orange, I assume) and turn their backs on Clinton, because they'd calculate that that would disrupt the news cycle more than just staying home.
The inauguration itself would usher in 500 more frivolous lawsuits. Liberal sites would write long, anguished screeds painstakingly disposing of each of the 500 lawsuits, and we'd argue ad nauseum about whether there was a grain of truth to Lawsuit #315.
They'd have a belief that if they could just reach the right volume of fuss, then they'd get their way. We'd have a belief that if we can only, properly address every single line-item of their fuss, then we'd get our way. It would totally wreck Clinton's first six months in office, maybe more, although she'd probably technically prevail.
Eight years later, polls would show that a majority of Americans misremember Trump winning the popular vote and the electoral college.
Trump would never stop campaigning. He'd be touring and holding rallies for four years, and his numbers would swell. We'd continue our breathless cataloging of his lies, as if that protected anything. Republicans in Congress would invent some loyalty bullshit, where the test of a true Republican is to be out on the campaign trail with Trump, and not in the Illegitimate Congress. So they'd only show up when there was a vote they wanted, and they'd be totally absent. The news would occasionally "balance" their coverage of the screaming masses at Trump rallies with footage of rootless, confused Democrats on Capital Hill trying to figure out what they can possibly do if they never have a quorum. Bernie would file a lawsuit in return, demanding a quorum, and we'd fight about Bernie a lot.
Never stopping campaigning sounds like a very good idea and I really want somebody to do it.
393 is insultingly stupid, even by bob standards.
For a second, I thought 403 was directed at me.
You're never stupid by bob standards.
You're never fully dressed as when you have a simile.
You're never as credible as when you remember the correct syntax for a simile.
I still think "Lufthansa" is a pretty cool name, but that's because I don't really know what "Hansa" means and would prefer to imagine it's an airborne resurrection of the Hanseatic League.
That is roughly what it means.
What heebie-geebie said. Right on target.
Heebie for President. (I mean, I guess in context that seems like a condemnation. "Affix the stone of triumph!")
Yeah, heebies' right. Why can't we do that? Is it just because that's not in the DNA of the Democratic establishment?
What do the Republicans do?
More than a few would be talking about Second Amendment solutions.
What's funny is that if you read any conservative sites, they're always complaining about how the left is ruthless and the right is toothless.
Everything Heebie said. Only electors would also be getting death threats by the dozens.
413 The truth is somewhere in the middle.
413: They're right. The actual conservatives have about as much power left in the Republican Party as I do.
David Brooks is still kicking, but that's only because his mouth hasn't learned his brain is dead yet.
All that remains is white nationalism.
At least as far as ideology goes. There's still money, of course.
They would hold their own, symbolic Electoral College on the same day. (They used to hold pretend Congressional hearings in Fresno on water issues.)
They'd be pressing the treason issue as much as I want to be pressing the treason issue. (My earlier question is becoming more relevant, about Obama arresting actual traitors. Can he not do that because it would look partisan?)
Also, they wouldn't give a fuck about "well, the other side would be so angry that they'd fight in the streets so we better not do anything." Because they don't give a shit about the hostages.
Of course they don't. On the other hand, maybe the hostages actually wanted health coverage or something.
What's funny is that if you read any conservative sites, they're always complaining about how the left is ruthless and the right is toothless.
One important dynamic, it's always easier to recognize when somebody on your own side starts throwing bombs that you know are ultimately going to be harmless.
So, for example, when Harry Ried starts talking about prosecuting Comey under the Hatch Act or alleging that the Trump campaign actively communicated with Russian intelligence we all recognize that as most likely bluster which may, hopefully, push things in a good direction, but isn't ultimately consequential.
But if somebody on the Right was talking about Huma Abedin's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that would feel much more personal and threatening even if it was also mostly bluster.
I'd still say that the right is, in fact, much more threatening, but that dynamic is going to explain why there's always going to be an asymmetry in perceptions.
h-g:We'd continue our breathless cataloging of his lies, as if that protected anything.
Which is part much the message of the article at 393!
Liberals seemed unable to counter the Bush administration's deft politicization of the facts. Centrist opposition to the war manifested in tame discussions about UN mandates and proper inspection procedures. Bush adviser Karl Rove stated, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." Lost in the facts, Democrats could not propose an alternative.
Since about 1993 or so, when over at Obsidian Wings hilzoy was proving with facts and flawless logic that Bushites were lying about WMD and torture...
...and I was yelling in the comment section "It doesn't matter! Nobody but you and your liberal friends gives a fuck! You are playing right into their hands. You need another way."
And then "reality-based community" became a left blogosphere slogan...
And so here we are now, and everything has been lost.
This is great you should read it: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/12/we-should-be-kind-americas-first-victim-melania-trump
2003 instead of 1993
DeLong today is turning on Krugman, who has apparently lost it entirely. Shorter, Krug says we are at full employment, BdL says look at EPOP.
You know what? Krug is not dumb. Krugman is lying up the Obama economic record.
Point is, neither want to argue values, and prefer to argue about facts, as if something, some fight, can still be won with facts.
424: Ugh. If any words describe up Laurie Penny, it's "snidely condescending"
She knows her audience