We don't need no thought control

by Ugh

So... Trump is digging in, not gonna give up without a fight, pulling out all the stops, etc. etc. etc. (he has perfected Calvinball in this process, I might add).

Meanwhile, GOPers will excuse anything he does.  The 5th Avenue murder thing was a joke, and yet it was set forth as a serious argument in court by the administration.

Either the GOP breaks or American Democracy dies a slow death over the next 20 years.  

I mean, I'd like to think the next Dem Prez (should we ever have another one) would pull the reigns back on Trump's power abuses, but, sh1t, you mean I can do whatever I want as long as my party controls just over 1/3 of the Senate?  yippie ki yay mother fncker (aka "Single payer, b1tches!)

In sum, the future of the republic is in the hands of Mitch McConnell, I weep for the future.

 

Comments

[russell]

As for me running, sorry, but that’s evasive.

Sorry, not meant that way. It was just me saying it would be great to have someone relatively uncompromised / uncompromising, somebody with fairly transparent and beneficial motivations and agendas, on the ballot.

I don't expect, require, or demand that you run for anything, nor do I think that not running for office disqualifies you from sharing your opinions here, on any topic.

I sure as hell do not plan to run for anything, and yet I feel free to rant away at the drop of a hat.

Best possible result is rarely if ever available, so we work with best possible result. And yes, with DJT the bar has been set so low that a ham sandwich would in fact be an improvement.

[wj]

Donald, it's not that I don't get out and hear other voices. It's how long I've been hearing the same thing, phrased the same way.

If nothing else, I'd expect those making the argument, if they are seriously trying to convince others (which I assume you are), to recognize that their approach isn't convincing much of anybody and it might be time to try a different one. But apparently not.

[Girl from the North Country]

Thanks for posting that Swalwell link, cleek. I haven't been able to follow for a few days, and that was extremely cheering. Probably because it looks like parts of it might make a good, dramatic soundbite, so might cut through into the consciousness of more than the usual suspects!

[Nigel]

Some excellent advice:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/how-trumps-verbal-trick-moved-into-progressive-discourse.html

I intend to follow it on Thursday. I live in a Labour/Conservative marginal, but will vote for the Lib Dems regardless. I regard both the major parties i. their current incarnation as beyond the pale.

[Girl from the North Country]

I live in what may possibly be the safest Tory seat in the country, but which was very strongly Remain, so if anybody stands a chance of toppling the Tories it's the Lib Dems. I have a postal vote, so accordingly voted Lib Dem a week or so ago. If it had been a Labour/Tory marginal, I may have voted Labour (despite my near-contempt for Corbyn). But I fear BoJo and the Tories will win with a majority, although clearly if anybody but Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party they'd almost certainly be wiping the floor with the Tories because of the NHS, the BoJo-Trump bromance etc. It's the very opposite of "cometh the hour cometh the man", and it makes me feel sick.

[CharlesWT]

A point of view on Brexit.

"In a wide-ranging conversation, Hannan explains why British libertarians voted overwhelmingly in favor of Brexit, the urgency of honoring the results of the 2016 referendum in which 52 percent of voters called for leave, and why he believes Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister will set the U.K. on the path to a Venezuelan-style nightmare of neo-socialism."
What the U.S. Media Get Totally Wrong About Brexit: Daniel Hannan: One of Brexit's architects says leaving the EU is a victory for free trade and decentralization and warns that a Corbyn victory will destroy the U.K.'s future. (podcast interview)

[sapient]

Sorry, not meant that way. It was just me saying it would be great to have someone relatively uncompromised / uncompromising, somebody with fairly transparent and beneficial motivations and agendas, on the ballot.

russell is such a good person, and I'm sure that Donald is too, even though I, a bad person, find him insufferable.

I have asked about Donald's real world experience before [and I would never do it again! please, don't think I'm doing that here!], not because I was stalking him, but because it's weird to me that a mature person wouldn't have had experiences in his life that he had to make moral compromises. Making moral compromises won't get you into heaven, I agree. But when one has dependents, and has to make money to support them, or when one is an editor, and has to meet a deadline so publishes something crappy, or when one is in a war, and sees someone he thinks is going to blow up someone else, or when someone is Obama, and sees that there's a network of people trying to suicide bomb civilians, or when someone is ...

And that doesn't mean there aren't lines. There are lines, and some of them are held, like the guys that Trump just pardoned for war crimes. Donald fails to mention that.

People who won't make moral compromises will never get elected. They will never pass legislation. But, actually, it's a moral compromise just to live in a nice house that would be unaffordable by others, certainly if you don't share it.

The world is f'd. We need to have people who are brave enough to step up. I am only brave enough to do simple, private things, and I won't run for office. Donald won't run for office. When he slanders people on my side who do, I get pissed. He should try it. Maybe he can be the first politician-saint. I get it that he doesn't want to, of course! But quit savaging people who do what they can to win a public office, and to do something with public office.

Thanks.

[sapient]

But, actually, it's a moral compromise just to live in a nice house that would be unaffordable by others, certainly if you don't share it.

So, any of us with a bathroom, who don't welcome in homeless people to change and shower there, who are we? Who the hell are we? Triangulating scum? I plead guilty.

[Girl from the North Country]

Although I see the latest YouGov poll, just quoted on Newsnight, is predicting a 28 Tory majority, but another hung parliament within the margin of error. They were predicting a Tory majority of 65 a few weeks ago....

[Girl from the North Country]

Donald compromised enough, if I remember correctly, to vote for HRC in the last election, and given his opinion of her, that was quite a compromise.

[sapient]

Donald compromised enough, if I remember correctly, to vote for HRC in the last election, and given his opinion of her, that was quite a compromise.

Cool. If I remember correctly, he spouted hate and invited trolls on the Internet, then voted for HRC in CT, where she was a sure bet. Big step. Really stepping up there, our Donald.

[Nigel]

Someone unkind once said that Hannan is the stupid person’s idea of an intelligent person. Which is not inaccurate.

[nous]

Interesting piece up at FiveThirtyEight about the Democratic Party in the 2010s.

Wisconsin, the tipping point state in the 2016 election, is 86 percent white. Whites make up over 76 percent of the country’s total population. And the Democratic Party bled white voters during the Obama years: In 2007, Pew Research found that whites were just as likely to identity as Democrats as they were to identify as Republicans. By 2010, a year into Obama’s tenure, whites were 12 points more likely to call themselves Republicans. The inflection point is hard to miss. Democrats have looked to states with large minority populations like Georgia and Arizona as a way to change their Electoral College fortunes, but forging a new path is never a sure bet; the old “blue wall” states filled with white voters must seem within grasp to many Democrats, if only they could find the right candidate with the right kind of campaign.

I'm not sure what to make of much of the analysis. I think that the proxy of college education for class flattens a lot of crucial cultural difference that has to do with deep cross-cultural experience, and I think that, rather than education, drives what we are seeing - especially when tied to the deeply held myth of meritocracy.

My takeaway, however, is that white fragility may well doom us to ecological collapse if we can't get over this crap right rikki tik.

[hairshirthedonist]

Should he have moved to a different state?

[sapient]

Should he have moved to a different state?

By his standards? What would a saint do?

[sapient]

Should he have moved to a different state?

Actually, such a good point. Why isn't St. Donald living in Mississippi? He could do so much good there. So confusing!

[hairshirthedonist]

When discussing moral failings, one need not avoid one's own. I could go on for days about mine. I'm sure Donald doesn't claim to be free of all those he mentions here.

[sapient]

I'm sure Donald doesn't claim to be free of all those he mentions here.

I'm not so sure.

[hairshirthedonist]

I can tell. This is a place where I enjoy reading comments from a variety of people, including both you and Donald. Not the weird personal stuff, though.

[bobbyp]

Not the weird personal stuff, though.

Well, that does it for me!

[cleek]

i was just starting to think this was a safe place where i could share.

never...

[hairshirthedonist]

I’m not talking about kinks. Let your freak flags fly, weirdos! ;^)

[Tony P.]

GftNC: By the way, I haven't seen Tony P around these parts for a while.

I'm grateful that you noticed, GftNC. Rest assured, I'm fine -- just busier being a granny nanny than I ever thought I'd be. It's hard to find 15 uninterrupted minutes to type out a respectable comment.

Even keeping up as a lurker is getting hard. You folks can write faster than I can read:)

--TP

[russell]

we know about you and that vanilla extract thing, hairshirt. ;)

[sapient]

just busier being a granny nanny

Whaaaaa! OM!, what next?

Congrats!

[Nigel]

World’s fist commercial fully electric short haul flight service:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/11/worlds-first-fully-electric-commercial-aircraft-takes-flight-in-canada

[Nigel]

First.

[Nigel]

Meanwhile, goodbye permafrost:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/12/10/arctic-may-have-crossed-key-threshold-emitting-billions-tons-carbon-into-air-long-dreaded-climate-feedback/

[Hartmut]

So, time to go from "climate change is a hoax" to "We can't do anything about it, so we shouldn't"? No, far too early for that. There is still snow in the winter in some part of the world.

[bobbyp]

Nigel: Yup. Not good. Some say, "Well, if the world is going to hell in a handbasket, then why do anything?"

LOL...well, why not just mass anarchy, violence, and mayhem...eh? What's the difference? WFT.

That people put out such arguments is to only define the enemy.

Keep them in your sights.

[Girl from the North Country]

Tony P: good to see you. Don't be a stranger, when duties permit. To (mis)quote Oscar Wilde, to lose one valued commenter (JDT) may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness.

[خرید از چین]

thanks

[واردات از چین]

thanks for u

[Donald]

As promised — The Occasional Link

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/if-ukraine-is-impeachable-whats-afghanistan/603334/

[cleek]

bad policy is different than using the power of the office for personal gain.

[wj]

Not least because it is far easier to objectively demonstrate using public office for private gain than it is to demonstrate that a particular policy is bad. However certain we may be about the lack of merit of a policy.

[wj]

And the border wall hits another brick wall:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/federal-judge-blocks-trump-plan-to-spend-36-billion-in-military-funds-on-border-wall/2019/12/10/e534468a-1b9f-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

It will be interesting to see if the citizens of El Paso (one of the plaintiffs in the case) remember, come November, who was pushing to inflict economic harm on them and their community. Who knows, perhaps the citizens of Texas generally will take notice. Stranger things have happened.

[Tony P.]

sapient,
I fear you may have misunderstood the phrase "granny nanny". According to my sister, it is a term of art for "full-time caregiver to your very old, practically demented, mother".

GftNC,
Love that Wilde quote. Was it possibly about grandmothers originally? Or maybe aged aunts? Anyway, here and here are a couple of now-ancient appreciations of our old friend JDT, who I sorely miss.

Marty,
How's the climate on YOUR planet?

McKinney,
None of his ideas involve "structurally reforming the country" or nationalizing medicine for all practical purposes, which if they occurred, are irreversible.
I am really curious: why would a "structural reform" be "irreversible"? Could it possibly be irreversible because too many voters would like it too much to let it get undone?

--TP

[sapient]

Sorry Tony P: yes, I did. I was thinking that the granny part was you.

I've been through that phase of life, and know how difficult it is. Best of luck.

[hairshirthedonist]

we know about you and that vanilla extract thing, hairshirt. ;)

Did you read the thing about my friend's uncle or grandfather (forget which) drinking it while working in the galley in the navy? Yikes! The Village People never sang about that part.

[Girl from the North Country]

Love that Wilde quote. Was it possibly about grandmothers originally? Or maybe aged aunts?

Tony P, it's from the incomparable Importance of Being Earnest. When the mystery of Jack's origins is finally being unravelled, and Jack has to admit to Lady Bracknell that he has lost both his parents (he was of course a foundling - found in the famous handbag), she magisterially remarks "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” You can find the famous Edith Evans delivery of it (and the whole interrogation scene, full of wonderfulnesses) on Youtube under "Edith Evans to lose one parent" in the search box, as the first selection, headed "John Gielgud & Edith Evans: The Importance of Being Earnest". Do listen to it, it's only 6.35 long, and utterly sublime.

[russell]

what an utterly strange man.

40% of the country thinks he's great.

[cleek]

he's our first WWE president.

[hairshirthedonist]

More presidential than Lincoln.

[nous]

Trump can fantasize about being Thanos all he wants and he can cosplay to his heart's content.

But we all know he doesn't have the stones for it.

[cleek]

oh, this is nice. despite Trump's sleazy smearing of Page and Strzok, there were plenty of pro-Trump communications between FBI agents during the 2016 election.

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/11/dojs-ig-report-debunked-trumps-fbi-bias-claims-but-found-anti-hillary-texts-from-fbi-agent/

Bias! Deep State!

[russell]

But we all know he doesn't have the stones for it.

;)

[Michael Cain]

Time Magazine picked Greta Thunberg as person of the year. Reactions seem to be mixed.

If you believe that climate change is an existential threat to civilization in the not-too-distant future, requiring radical action now, it's a fine choice. She certainly brought more attention to the issue than, say, Gov. Inslee. If you believe that it's not so bad and there's time to spend political capital on immigration and voting rights and health care and we can get to climate change in good time, not so much. In the latter case I'm inclined towards Nancy Pelosi for the way she's managed the House this year.

[wj]

But we all know he doesn't have the stones for it.

And what blights his life, more than anything else, is that he knows it, too.

[Nigel]

... if you believe it’s not so bad...
Does anyone actually believe that ?
Outright denial I can understand, but otherwise, given the extraordinary complexity of the climate system, the only rational reaction is to stop pumping out CO2 as soon as possible. We really have no precise idea just how much damage we have already committed ourselves to.

This sort of comment is really just another version of denial:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/12/12/world/science-health-world/greta-thunberg-slams-misleading-climate-pledges-chaotic-u-n-summit/
“Our last day as a party to the Paris Agreement will be Nov. 4, 2020,” Marcia Bernicat, a career State Department diplomat and head of the U.S. delegation, told fellow delegates late Wednesday.

“We remain fully committed to working with you, our global partners, to enhance resilience, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and prepare for and respond to natural disasters.”...

[russell]

We remain fully committed to working with you

No, we don't

"Denial" is being kind. IMO it's bullshit happy talk.

[Michael Cain]

Does anyone actually believe that ?

What's the economics term? Revealed preferences? Every day, billions of people, individually and collectively, indicate that a number of things are worse than climate change is going to be. Using small electric cars. Setting hard dates to eliminate the use of coal. Living in smaller spaces. Drastically reducing large-scale long-distance jet transport. Smaller television screens.

I admit to making many of those choices myself.

[cleek]

Does anyone actually believe that ?

yep.

our former EPA director, for one: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/epa-says-climate-change-might-not-be-bad/

and it's a common fallback for people who deny that humans are causing it. "we'll be able to grow crops in the arctic!"

[hairshirthedonist]

Just think of all the excess resources humanity will have after all the deaths from disease, starvation, and violent political upheaval. Climate change will be bountiful!

[wj]

Just think of all the excess resources humanity will have after all the deaths from disease, starvation, and violent political upheaval.

Besides, it won't be our kind of people who will be dying from it. So who cares?
(I was going to put a /sarcasm in. Except I think that it is, in part, a quite real part of the thinking of some.)

[Donald]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-obama-saudi-arabia-yemen_n_5df14e46e4b0b75fb53702c3

Naive. Would require a certain minimal level of honesty about complicity in crimes against humanity. Also understates the death toll, which is probably in the low hundreds of thousands now when famine and disease are included, and tens of thousands in late 2016.

[wj]

Even in an administration setting new records for churn when it comes to filling offices, this seems exceptional: The FDA is on its fourth commissioner this year.

His first challenge: he thinks something fairly drastic needs to be done about vaping and how it is spreading amongst the young. But Trump, after saying much the same, has now declined to take action because opposition in the vaping industry might hurt his reelection prospects.

[خرید از چین]

thanks

[واردات از چین]

thsnks for u

[واردات از چین]

it was helpful
thanks for u

[خرید از چین]

thanks so helpful

[واردات از چین]

It was useful.
Thanks for the good content

[خرید از چین]

It was useful.
Thanks for the good content

[واردات از چین]

Thanks for your useful text and content

[واردات از چین]

تشکر
گروه تجاری آوا در حوزه واردات عمده از چین به ایران و خرید از چین ، جستجو و تامین کالا در چین ، ارسال سمپل و انبار داری در چین ، بازرسی و نظارت ، حمل و نقل کالا و ترخیص کالا از چین فعالت دارد .
کارشناسان گروه تجاری آوا به عنوان نماینده مشتریان علاوه بر کاهش هزینه های مالی و زمانی زمینه کاهش ریسک های تجارت و آسودگی خاطر تاجران ایرانی را فراهم کرده اند .

برای تماس با ما از طریق ایمیل [email protected] و یا تلفن دفتر تهران ۴۴۸۰۸۰۶۸ اقدام نمایید.

وبسایت گروه تجاری آوا

www.parschina.ir

[خرید از چین]

گروه تجاری آوا در حوزه واردات عمده از چین به ایران و خرید از چین ، جستجو و تامین کالا در چین ، ارسال سمپل و انبار داری در چین ، بازرسی و نظارت ، حمل و نقل کالا و ترخیص کالا از چین فعالت دارد .
کارشناسان گروه تجاری آوا به عنوان نماینده مشتریان علاوه بر کاهش هزینه های مالی و زمانی زمینه کاهش ریسک های تجارت و آسودگی خاطر تاجران ایرانی را فراهم کرده اند .

برای تماس با ما از طریق ایمیل [email protected] و یا تلفن دفتر تهران ۴۴۸۰۸۰۶۸ اقدام نمایید.

وبسایت گروه تجاری آوا

www.parschina.ir

[cleek]

well that's a lot of spam

[CharlesWT]

well that's a lot of spam

Can't be Spam. Spam contains pork.

As for a lot of, when you're getting paid a nickel per instance.

[Donald]

This story has been floating around for months. One way or another it might start to get interesting.

https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/

[Donald]

This is in the useful link category. Under the heading of Trump’s vicious cruelty to sick people

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/12/a-national-disgrace-trump-proposes-social-security-change-that-could-end-disability-benefits-for-hundreds-of-thousands.html

[hairshirthedonist]

But tax cuts!

[Donald]

This is one of the comments to the proposed change. What a great country

https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=SSA-2018-0026-0144

Not sure if the link will work.

[hairshirthedonist]

We can't afford it.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US