Authoritarianism: Aug 26–Sep 1
“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
— Meghan McCain, September 1, 2018
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- Really useful.
2. Food for thought. Background on the 25th amendment.
3. Yanno, seems like Трамп is creating more problems for himself over all this. I don’t mind, but christ this something that would be easily avoided with a bit of class. Oh, right. He’ll even be childish in public: https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1034112099465740289
US senators have issued a bipartisan call to lower American flags in honour of John McCain after the White House raised its Stars and Stripes back up. Top Democrat Chuck Schumer and top Republican Mitch McConnell said flags on all government buildings should be at half-staff for the late senator.
I mean if even McTurtle can figure this out…
OTOH John McCain made his feelings abundantly clear:
McCain’s service at the National Cathedral may well become the biggest meeting of the political establishment and visiting global elites so far seen during the Trump presidency. The President’s absence and failure to lead a grateful nation in mourning would, for McCain, eloquently reflect the fracture with the traditional ruling classes that he successfully made the focus of his 2016 campaign and that has become a motif of his presidency.
Whatever your opinion of McCain is, this is just stunning:
Goodness:
And Biden’s doing the honors in AZ.
Even Mooch gets it right.

Zaaaaap:
We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.
4. You know, for all that we keep hammering on the Dems for doing nothing (and I’m not entirely happy with the party on the ground), the Dem lawmakers have been pretty busy as it turns out. It’s just that the GOP shuts them down left and right. (And the media doesn’t cover this very well.)
5. In other words, when GOP supporters talk about “corruption” they are talking about “not white [male] like me”.
6. The GOP will fall in line as long as this is true. Yet again why midterms are so important this year.

7. Perspective (Sep 2017). Murdoch showed the way for today’s social media. He just wasn’t an obvious enemy of the state except for those of us who have objected to him for decades.
8. Трамп is losing the veteran base maybe? I mean, why Cadet Bonespurs ever had their loyalty, I can’t figure but I’ll take all straws.
9. This is good. Of course I’m sure it will go around and around again; the GOP are despicable like that.
10. Honest to god, this is bizarre. Not the least of which is the failed speakerphone convo.
11. This is part of why I consider the GOP in its death throes. An ethical, thoughtful party would have had no end of lawmakers troubled by the chaos and lawlessness coming from the WH to put the brakes on this.
12. This is RIDICULOUS. And why the “economic advisor”? Does Трамп think he should get ka-ching every time someone looks up his name, like some kind of giant orange ad-sense?
13. For personal profit. Unsurprising.
14. Basic problem here:
[M]ore than 16,000 people in the United States […] have lost their jobs at the communications giant since 2011, as it continues to shut down call centers to consolidate facilities within the US, or in favor of offshore alternatives in countries such as India, the Philippines and Mexico.
Though AT&T is earning record profits, spending billions on stock buybacks and is expecting an estimated windfall of $20bn in savings from Donald Trump’s tax reforms, it has continued to lay off workers and outsource jobs.
15. Separation of church and state /grits teeth

16. Oh, interesting.
Overall summary of this Tuesdays primaries (FL, AZ)
And such class coming from the GOP
And interesting trend:
Oklahoma, too. Punishing. If we put our minds to it, we can do this in November too.
17. Fucks sake. Is the Трамп administration giving out highly confidential personal information of public-servants-turned-Democratic-candidates to their political opponents?
I’m not sure this is much better. I’m also stumped on how exactly the USPS is at all involved in the first place??
18. Is that enough to crush this idea? I certainly hope so.
19. My goodness. (I have a surprised face laying around here somewhere; let me find it…) Summarized here, full article behind WSJ paywall:
20. This reminds me of a few dysfunctional workplaces I’ve been in. Horrendous. Even for GOP slime, this has to be taking a huge personal toll on these people.
21. Absolutely not. We HAVE to push back on this. Otherwise before long our citizenship will be at the whim of the federal government.
Another targeted group:
22. Grrrrrr…
23. I’m furious.
24. This is kind of a doozie. I shared a story earlier about Трамп’s interest in refurbishing/remodeling the FBI building. Turns out there was a LOT more to it than that… he doesn’t want them to move to another building and sell the old one to be redeveloped…because such a redevelopment would compete with one of HIS hotels!
25. Now that’s interesting…Not that I want the Orange Turd to nominate a replacement… but it’s hard to envision someone worse than this guy.
26. Your TAX RETURN!!1!!1111!!

27. Трамп is adhering to the “Luegenpress” playbook…keep a close eye on this.
You know, we’ve got someone else who is threatening the press…can we arrest him like we did this guy?
28. Qatar understands how to manipulate Трамп.
(non paywalled reporting on same subject)
29. This was immediately pointed out at the time, but I guess the extensive number crunching has been done:
30. You know, this is like every antisocial kid that lives in the basement and rarely comes up for air. It’s the same mindset. It’s just that for him, his parent’s basement is his properties at which everyone licks his arse.
At his recent rallies, Trump has taken to expounding on his lack of acceptance by the “elites,” proclaiming it a badge of pride. And his disdain for what he terms political correctness is similarly applauded by many of his supporters.
“The thing to realize is that Donald Trump’s base revels in him playing the transgressive jerk,” said Rick Wilson, author of “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and a veteran of Republican campaigns.
Wilson added that with McCain in particular, the funeral snub perhaps stings more than most, in part because Trump can’t abide not being the main focus of adulation. “You know what is making Donald Trump the craziest right now is he’s not the center of attention,” Wilson said. “He’s crawling the damn walls because they’re running story after story on John McCain and he hates it because he’s not the center of attention.”
31. Good riddance to white trash.
32. Yes, this was obvious a while back, particularly when Mueller first assembled his team and there were ppl with deep experiences in investigating financial fraud.
33. Today in Friday’s news: another flipper:
Трамп is quiet so far today.
34. Russia motives. Not rocket science.
35. Stochastic violence.
36. Pay attention. Parasites, all of them.
In a key 2015 Harvard Business Review study of share buybacks, Profits Without Prosperity, William Lazonick, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a leading critic of buyback practice, argued that stock buybacks are “a prime mode of both concentrating income among the richest households and eroding middle-class employment opportunities”.
This allocation of earnings, popular with top executives, who are paid primarily in stock options and stock awards, are a key reason why, five years after the official end of the Great Recession, corporate profitability is not translating into widespread economic prosperity, Lazonick argues.
Also:
37. Watching McCain’s funeral is quite something. No small amount of zingers. An incredible collection of beltway folks. A president rage-tweeting and golfing. I fully admit I’m watching this to see what Bush and Obama will say but Meghan McCain, Lieberman (!) and Kissinger have all made quite the speeches so far.
I tend not to point to DailyKos for a variety of reasons. However, I agree with this opinion piece on Bush. I did marvel at how much a better speaker he seemed to be today, which is entirely a reflection on how terrible Трамп is, not on how much better Bush is in retrospect.
That all said, remember that McCain voted along with Трамп policies 83% of the time. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/
Then of course there’s the crass.
38. Looks like kompromat hit Graham.
He did a volte-face about Трамп after going golfing with him,

but I think this is the pertinent detail:

39. Then again Трамп’s woman problem should have cost him the presidency in 2016’s elections. But here’s hoping now:
40. And Kavanaugh’s still an issue.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee are set to begin on Tuesday, despite a letter last week from every Democrat on the committee urging Grassley to delay the hearings.
Senate Democrats said this was the first time that a sitting president has exerted executive privilege under the Presidential Records Act in order to prevent documents from going to Congress during a Supreme Court confirmation process. Mr. Schumer issued his angry tweets alleging a holiday weekend cover-up just minutes before the start of the funeral for his Senate colleague John McCain, which Mr. Schumer attended.
41. As someone noted, it’s like the bankrobber who targets banks “because that’s where the money is.” Case in point: intelligence agencies and social media.
42. Fuckwit’s going to tank everything before we get enough pitchforks to run him out.
43. We’ll see.
https://www.investors.com/politics/trumps-approval-midterm-elections-ibd-tipp-poll/
44. Voter suppression efforts.
45. Just for the bobbleheaded Congress line…
46. /whistles innocently


