Saturday Night Open Thread: Old Man Yells At Crowds

by 10:10 pm. It has 161 Comments.


How Many Terrorists Did We Just Create?

by 6:05 pm. It has 282 Comments.

What happens when you take the “gloves off,” unlike that sissy boy Obama:

The U.S. military acknowledged for the first time Saturday that it launched an airstrike against the Islamic State last week in the densely packed Iraqi city of Mosul where residents say more than 100 people were killed.

“An initial review of strike data … indicates that, at the request of the Iraqi security forces, the Coalition struck ISIS fighters and equipment, March 17, in west Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties,” the task force leading the coalition said in a statement.

Previously, the U.S.-led coalition had said that officials were unsure whether the United States had conducted air attacks targeting the affected site in Mosul al-Jadida where local officials say they have so far pulled at least 60 bodies from one destroyed building.

This is a disaster on so many levels. Hopefully Adam can discuss what is happening in Yemen, which is also being dialed up and will lead to more incidents like this.


Excellent Read: “How Obamacare Became a Preexisting Condition”

by 3:19 pm. It has 107 Comments.

Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:

You knew things had gone sideways when they locked up the House. The corridors that lead through the heart of the Capitol, from Senate chamber to House chamber, were still an unnavigable mass of tourists and staffers and journalists, all clustered by the walls and in unruly knots below the various graven images in Statuary Hall. The echoes were an impossible gabble of crying children, overmatched tour guides, angry parents, and television stand-ups from many lands. At about 3:30, when the voting was supposed to start, a small, tough-looking woman from the Capitol Police turned out the lights in one of the small foyers leading to the chamber. She swung the big doors shut and slammed the locks down into the floor. And that was pretty much it. Until, of course, Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, took to a podium in the bowels of the Capitol and said the following.

“Obamacare is the law of the land for the foreseeable future.”

That statement should have come with a sword for Ryan to hand over to Nancy Pelosi who, let it be said, is one legislative badass. She somehow kept her caucus united. There wasn’t even a hint of blue-doggery from her caucus as it sat back and let the Republicans rip each other to shreds, let the president* get exposed as a rookie who should be sent back to A-ball, and let the conservative movement expose itself as graphically as it ever has as the soulless creature of the money power that it’s been for 40 years. Usually, there are some Democrats who either want to make a deal so that Fred Hiatt will send them a Christmas card, or simply because Democrats occasionally can’t help themselves from trying to make the government, you know, actually work…

“We were a 10-year opposition party where being against things was easy to do,” Ryan said. “And now, in three months’ time, we’ve tried to go to a governing party, where we have to actually get … people to agree with each other in how we do things.” Of course, since 2010, the House has had a Republican majority and a Republican speaker. There have been two of them—John Boehner and Ryan. The crazy caucus ran Boehner out of office and now, they’ve handed Ryan his head. Pro Tip: it’s not you, boys. It’s your party…

To be fair, the president* took the defeat rather better than I thought he would, which is to say he blamed the Democrats, repeated claim that the Affordable Care Act is gasping its last breath, and was so fulsome in his sympathy for Paul Ryan that, were I Ryan, I’d hire a food taster. Somebody’s going to pay for this. You can be sure of that. Meanwhile, as Paul Ryan said, Obamacare remains the law of the land. The Rotunda was still packed with tourists when the news came down and you wondered how many people there had somehow been helped by the Affordable Care Act. Maybe it’s that elderly gent looking up at the statue of Huey Long, or that kid in the wheelchair paused beneath Norman Borlaug. Obamacare is now a pre-existing condition, and a damned stubborn one at that.

Also too, Scott Lemieux at LGM on a “B.F.D.”:

… It is ever more remarkable, in retrospect, that much of the discussion on the left following the passage of the ACA consisted of complaints about how Obama/Pelosi/Reid could “only” pass the ACA. This is, on one level, understandable, given that the ACA is unmistakably inferior to the baseline established by other liberal democracies… The coalition that passed the ACA included three senators from the Dakotas, one each from Indiana and Arkansas, and two each from Montana and West Virginia. Glib “BE MORE LIBERAL!” exhortations don’t really help you to get liberal governing majorities in an institution that heavily favors conservative rural interests.

Comprehensive health care reform is brutally hard, as Truman and Johnson and Clinton can tell you. In addition getting the list of legislators above, the Democrats also needed to keep in the fold every liberal who was well aware that the ACA was substantially suboptimal. Senators like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown deserve enormous credit for working to make the bill as it could be and then supporting it. The Republicans just completely failed with a more homogeneous coalition in the more top-down chamber. What the Democratic leadership pulled off in 2009 is remarkable, and we now know that it is an enduring accomplishment.


It all depends upon your appetite

by 2:10 pm. It has 151 Comments.

There’s a Pizzagate rally going on right now in the nation’s capital.





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Designated Safe Space (Open Thread)

by 12:51 pm. It has 251 Comments.

A familiar argument played out in comments under Doug’s “Trump Troubadour” post yesterday. It goes something like this:

1) Story shared about a knucklehead who voted for Trump who’s expressing regret after getting reamed by Trump’s policies.

2) Commenters express contempt for said knucklehead.

3) Other commenters scold contemptuous commenters, arguing that we need to capture the knucklehead vote / avoid becoming consumed with hatred like Trump knuckleheads.

A couple of things. First, I don’t think anyone is saying people who voted for Trump should be barred from ever voting for a Democrat for all eternity. A vote is a vote, even if it’s cast by a goddamn dumbass. And I don’t think anyone is saying Democratic Party messaging is 100% perfect and should not be tweaked to appeal to a theft-proof majority in swing states — as long as that doesn’t entail compromising our equality principles.

But, many of us are angry as hell and blame the morons who handed a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue the keys to the world’s most fearsome nuclear arsenal. There’s nothing unjust about our anger, if you believe Trump voters possess moral agency. Trump voters committed a terrible act — knowingly empowering a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue. They earned our contempt.

As for the notion that harboring ill-will toward shit-for-brains Trump voters makes us morally equivalent to hate-filled Trump assholes, that’s a steaming load of horseshit, IMO. A few troll exceptions aside, the folks who comment here overwhelmingly support public policies that benefit people like the idiot Trump Troubadour and his drug-addicted son, whereas Republicans would watch them die in the gutter rather than pay a nickel more in taxes. That’s the crucial difference between us and the idiots who voted for Trump, and it’s visible from space.

People who struggle to contain their contempt for Trump voters, as I do every single day, should probably not volunteer to conduct bipartisan outreach for the Democratic Party. However, if you’re the type who can rise above your anger and sympathize with people who fell for a bigoted con man’s shtick, good for you — give yourself an extra pat on the back, and feel free to make your case to those voters with our blessings.

But I don’t see a thing in the world wrong with ranting about stupid fucking Trump voters at Balloon Juice. It’s not like loads of them are reading this blog and getting scared away from the party because we say mean things about them. And honestly, I find it kinda therapeutic, seeing as how I have to spend so much time biting my tongue around Trump assholes in meat space. So let’s call this blog our designated safe space, okay? Rant away!

ETA: This is pretty funny:


Saturday Morning Clowns Open Thread: Not Gonna Get Easier, Repubs

by 6:48 am. It has 329 Comments.


.

Aaaand now… Onwards, to the Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver’s Ayn Rand wet dream…


Late Night Open Thread: SAD!

by 1:21 am. It has 120 Comments.

(Courtesy of Schroedinger’s Cat)
.

Not us Dems, of course — but this guy:

What’s that again, Donald?…


Kinsley Gaffe Dead Ahead

by 11:53 pm. It has 59 Comments.

Oh, my.

Republicans are everything we said they were.





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Late Evening/Early Morning Open Thread: Floriduh Man Brunch in Unusual Places Edition

by 11:33 pm. It has 39 Comments.

So this happened.

ABC 10 News has the details.

LAKELAND, Fla. – A man’s desire to eat pancakes in the middle of the road got him in trouble with the police.

On Monday, Lakeland Police Department received a call that a man was sitting in the middle of a crosswalk eating pancakes on a small TV table. He was disrupting the flow of traffic by causing an obstruction.

Police came to the area, yet the man had left prior to their arrival. A video of the incident was posted on Facebook and the police were able to track down 21-year-old Kiaron Thomas as the flapjack-eating man.

Thomas admitted he ate the pancakes in the middle of the road as a prank.

Thomas was charged with obstruction in the roadway and disrupting the free flow of traffic. He will appear in court for the pancake prank in April.

Mmmmm pancakes!





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Friday Night Open Thread

by 8:44 pm. It has 233 Comments.

Glad to see that ACA got a temporary reprieve- now we need to be make sure they don’t kill it with 1000 cuts.

At any rate, I picked up the car today from the shop, and after a sacrifice of blood and money to the Subaru gods, my car is running like a champion. Thought I would share part of my conversation with the dealership guy to demonstrate why they hate me but love my money:

Subaru guy: Ok. You’re all ready to go. Here’s what we did. We-

Me: I’m not going to understand this.

Subaru guy: -something something sensor something something bushings something something injector something something next oil change something something come back in 30k miles.

Me: What about the blinking tire pressure gauge thing?

Subaru guy: We checked the TPS and it is ok and your tires are fine and inflated ok.

Me: What if it starts blinking again?

Subaru guy: Just ignore it. It just means your tires might need some air or the battery might be dying on it.

Me: They MIGHT need some air? Isn’t that precisely the same amount of information I had in my Subaru that DIDN’T have a TPS? What’s the point of that thing then?

Subaru guy: *Pauses* If the light comes on and stays on then get your tires checked.

Me: You just told me to ignore the light.

Subaru guy: Only if it is just blinking. If it comes on and stays on you have a problem.

Me: How can we be sure? We already have no idea what it means when it is blinking, why should we trust it if it comes on and stays on?

Subaru guy: *Pauses* I’ve never known that light to come on and stay on unless there is a problem.

Me: Ok, whatever. What about the check engine light?

Subaru guy: It’s off.

Me: It was off when I came here. Did you fix whatever it was that was making it go on?

Subaru guy: We think so. But if it comes back on come back and we will fix it.

Me: Isn’t that why I am here right now?

Subaru guy: *Pauses*

Me (sensing there is hate building in his heart): You know what, never mind. How much?

At any rate, the car ran like a dream, and I saw a noticeable increase in gas mileage, and apparently the bushings have something to do with the way it rides, because it was so much better and really fun to drive. I took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to Pittsburgh to pick up an antique armoire we found on Craigslist for $100 bucks, and man is it a beauty. This thing is worth a helluva lot more.

I put it right in the foyer as soon as you walk in the front door. It’s off center right now because I need to get something for the legs so they don’t fall through the cold air intake, but it looks perfect there. It’s cedar lined, and has drawers on the right side and a space to hang jackets and put shoes on the left side.

My house is really starting to shape up. Now I need to figure out what to hang above it the armoire.


Friday Recipe Exchange: Slow-Cooker Meals By Request

by 8:18 pm. It has 80 Comments.

What’s this? Recipes? On a Friday night? Crazy, right? So, anything interesting go on today?

I received a request from The Mighty Trowel, friend of blog from Down Under, for some slow-cooker recipes as they move into fall.  I think Slow-cookers are one of the most versatile appliances in the kitchen – you can make a nice pot roast dinner, or recipes as simple as soups and stews. The best part is coming home from work or long hike and know dinner is ready to go and the house smells wonderful.

For recipes, let’s start with JeffreyW’s Italian Beef, pictured above and the recipe here.

A surprisingly easy and tasty Spinach Lasagna recipe is here.

Pulled Pork two ways, click here for both, makes great sandwiches or wraps, .

Then something different, and a childhood favorite meal, Brunswick Stew, recipe here. (Posting this makes me smile, because the last time I posted the recipe, commenters informed me that REAL Brunswick Stew is made with squirrel. You’re welcome to substitute as needed).

And finally, a Turkey Bean Soup,  recipe found here.

For all our slow-cooker recipes, click here and here.

I also posted my updated recipe for Extra Crispy Oven Fried Chicken today, you can find it here.

What’s on your menu this weekend? Have any slow-cooker recipes to share with The Mighty Trowel – I’m sure they would be appreciated. Vegetarian recipes would be great, we like to do at least one a week here, so new ideas are always welcome.

I really like tonight’s featured recipe because it is very simple, but so very tasty. I often make it when I have a crowd visiting. The recipe below serves 4 and I always double it.  It’s a great recipe for letting everyone help themselves when they are hungry. I toss the pasta with olive oil and put it in the refrigerator and leave the beef simmering in the slow-cooker on low for the entire day. They can mix the two when they are hungry. The longer the beef cooks, the better it gets. It’s always a hit with everyone.

Portuguese Beef & Pasta

  • 1 lb round steak, cut into thin strips, remove excess fat
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp pepper
  • 1 onion, thinly sliced (reserve ¼ for beans)
  • 1 green pepper, cut into thin strips
  • 1 tsp crushed garlic
  • 6 oz can tomato paste
  • 2-14 oz can diced tomatoes
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 bay leaf (remove before serving)
  • ½ tsp crushed red pepper
  • 8 oz dry macaroni**

Slow-Cooker and saucepan

Add beef, salt, pepper, onion, green pepper, garlic, paste, diced tomatoes, water, bay leaf & red pepper to Slow-Cooker. Cook according to manufacturer’s directions (usually 8-10 hours on low) until beef tears easily with a fork. In saucepan, cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain well (you don’t want any water in your beef mixture) and mix beef and pasta in serving bowl.





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The Maskirovka Slips XI*: Updates to Four Ongoing Components

by 6:29 pm. It has 319 Comments.

Three quick updates to our ongoing coverage of Putin’s campaign of active measures, dezinformatziya, kompromat, and cyberwarfare against the US, the EU and its member states, and NATO and its member states.

First up, if you’re going to try for clever keep your mouth shut!

Additionally Congressman Nunes had not actually seen anything that he talked about at his two press conferences or with the President on Wednesday. He does not actually know what, if anything, was incidentally collected or if anything even was.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, R-Calif., does not know “for sure” whether President Donald Trump or members of his transition team were even on the phone calls or other communications now being cited as partial vindication for the president’s wiretapping claims against the Obama administration, according to a spokesperson.

“He said he’ll have to get all the documents he requested from the [intelligence community] about this before he knows for sure,” a spokesperson for Nunes said Thursday. Nunes was a member of the Trump transition team executive committee.

And that was before he destroyed what was left of his committee this morning.

It is important to note that Congressman Schiff is a former Federal prosecutor who has successfully prosecuted an FBI agent who was working for the Russians. He understands counterintelligence and he has successfully prosecuted a criminal case that arose out of a counterintelligence investigation. Congressman Nunes has a masters degree in agricultural science.

Secondly, and still involving the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Paul Manafort wants to come in out of the cold.

And now Roger Stone and Carter Page are looking to get a foot in the door to play let’s make a deal!

But, you ask, what about LTG Flynn? Surely you couldn’t forget LTG Flynn? No, I have not. Our third entry this Friday afternoon is that LTG Flynn, while working for both the Turkish government as an unregistered foreign agent and the President as his campaign’s national security advisor, proposed kidnapping Fethullah Gulen from his home in Pennsylvania and rendering him back to Turkey – outside of the actual, formal, and required by law extradition process. This is usually referred to as kidnapping. It is also, usually, a crime!

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, while serving as an adviser to the Trump campaign, met with top Turkish government ministers and discussed removing a Muslim cleric from the U.S. and taking him to Turkey, according to former Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey, who attended, and others who were briefed on the meeting.

The discussion late last summer involved ideas about how to get Fethullah Gulen, a cleric whom Turkey has accused of orchestrating last summer’s failed military coup, to Turkey without going through the U.S. extradition legal process, according to Mr. Woolsey and those who were briefed.

Mr. Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived at the meeting in New York on Sept. 19 in the middle of the discussion and found the topic startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal.

 Mr. Woolsey said the idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” The discussion, he said, didn’t include actual tactics for removing Mr. Gulen from his U.S. home. If specific plans had been discussed, Mr. Woolsey said, he would have spoken up and questioned their legality.It isn’t known who raised the idea or what Mr. Flynn concluded about it.

You know you have lost what little grip on reality you may have had when you’re proposing things that make DCI Woolsey uncomfortable.

Finally, we have our fourth update: Marine Le Pen has traveled to Russia to meet with her handler, boss, and krysha, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin has received Marine Le Pen in the Kremlin in a surprise move likely to reignite fears in Europe about Russian support for the European far right.

Putin told Le Pen Russia had no intention of meddling in the French presidential elections, though the meeting is likely to send the opposite message.

Speaking after their meeting, Le Pen said Putin represented “a sovereign nation” and “new vision”.

“A new world has emerged in the past years. This is Vladimir Putin’s world, Donald Trump’s world in the United States, Mr [Narendra] Modi’s world in India,” she added.

“I think I am probably the one who shares with all these great nations a vision of cooperation and not one of subservience – a hawkish vision that has too often been expressed by the European Union.”

Putin, of course, stated that Russia has no intention of interfering in the upcoming French elections.

“We do not want to influence events in any way, but we retain the right to meet with all the different political forces, just like our European and American partners do,” said Putin.

Bloomberg Politics reports that Le Pen’s visit is all about the money. Le Pen and the Front National are a bought and paid for arm of the Russian government. Which makes sense because otherwise a nationalist party that believes that the nation it seeks to lead should be dominated by Russia would be hard to understand.

“Russia is a decisive element of the balance of power that could help bring peace to the world,” she said during her Feb. 23 speech in Paris on foreign policy. “Russia has been mistreated by the EU and its vassal France,” she said.

Russia’s First Czech-Russian Bank OOO helped her finance an earlier campaign with a 9-million-euro loan in 2014. In the same year, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen’s political fund Cotelec received another 2-million-euro loan from a Russian-backed fund based in Cyprus, news website Mediapart reported.

Le Pen is still seeking a loan to help her finance her presidential run. She says French banks are refusing to lend her the millions of euros she needs. So far, she has a 6-million-euro loan from Cotelec, according to wealth filings with authorities made public this week.

A couple of final odds and ends. Putin has taken advantage of all the tumult in DC this week, as well as the successful attack in London, to escalate his war against Ukraine and to make some mischief in Belarus.

One last note: I’ve mentioned in comments a couple of times that all of the open source reporting and documentation is showing more and more penetration and penetration at all levels. This includes conservative organizations such as the NRA. If anyone was wondering how Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and Trump campaign surrogate wound up in Moscow getting a briefing from Russia’s Foreign Ministry, well we now know:

In March 2014, the U.S. government sanctioned Dmitry Rogozin—a hardline deputy to Vladimir Putin, the head of Russia’s defense industry and longtime opponent of American power—in retaliation for the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Eighteen months later, the National Rifle Association, Donald Trump’s most powerful outside ally during the 2016 election, sent a delegation to Moscow that met with him.

The NRA delegation’s 2015 trip to Russia took place the same week, lasting from Dec. 8-13, according to Clarke’s public financial disclosure forms, (PDF), and included not only the people who met with Rogozin but a number of other NRA dignitaries, including donors Dr. Arnold Goldshlager and Hilary Goldschlager, as well as Jim Liberatore, the CEO of the Outdoor Channel.

Here’s the link to Clarke’s disclosure form.

I’ll have more about this next week.

Stay frosty!

* This is the actual eleventh maskirovka post, I misnumbered number ten as eleven. I apologize for any inconvenience.


Friday Evening Open Thread: Repubs Be LOOOOSERRRSSSS!

by 6:00 pm. It has 122 Comments.

Yes, it’s only one battle, the GOP will never give up, think of the Media Village Idiots whose cocktail-party weekend has just been ruint, yadayadayada. As a devout Cynic, I’ve always felt that one of our Democrats’ greatest weaknesses is that we can never stop looking for the defeat lurking behind every victory. Tomorrow, we gird for the next fight — tonight, we celebrate!

Apart from cheering our warriors, what’s on the agenda as we start our well-earned weekend?

(And I am “open” to being handed a large bag of money, no strings attached. LOSER!)


About This Afternoon

by 4:53 pm. It has 121 Comments.

These messages, encountered on a foggy morning on the Venice (CA) boardwalk last week, seem on point:

Sorry for the soft focus — I had only time to grab a quick phone shot; these bearers of wisdom disappeared before I could unlimber some more sophisticated camera action.  But the point is made, I think.

I had a ten-day Flagyl imposed alcohol break, but that ended last night.  I plan to raise a cocktail tonight flavored with sweet, sweet wingnut tears.  La lucha continua, certainly.  But that doesn’t mean triumphs along the way can’t be savored. In fact the reverse.

Open thread, y’all.





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I’m not tired of winning

by 3:40 pm. It has 290 Comments.

Are you tired of winning? I’m not

Next fight is to make sure CMS and the Trump Administration do not sabotage the exchanges and avoids approving horrendous 1115 Medicaid waivers.

And yes, I am big footing Doug





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