US Politics, December 2017: I guess there’s always 2018

I have no clue what the symptoms of dementia are but I will say that the way Trump frequently repeats himself, blows past the interviewer's questions, and speaks in malformed sentences that make no sense out of context does remind me a lot of myself when I'm really drunk

they bothered

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/weather-channel-schools-trump-climate-change

I believe "cow-with-an-aneurysm" it was confined to describing the look in her eyes, not other aspects of her person.

the thing about "cow" as a sexist slur is that it's about denying personhood/consciousness/brain activity

I'm not gonna say trump definitely *doesn't* have dementia, my wife for one is convinced he does. I'm just not sure about a diagnosis based on his behavior.

i now realize that my real trick ending should have been that after fake-trump launches his "you have dementia" attack, 35% of americans incorrectly believe pierce has dementia, and fox demands and obtains his "retirement" for medical reasons from any employment, and gop wants investigations on any in press promoting the idea trump has dementia.

saying prominent women look like "cows" is absolutely shitty and beneath ilx, imo

I actually intended to specify that I wasn't making a fat joke, I was talking about the fact that she has abnormally large, bovine-looking eyes. This would be an example of the "cow-having-an-aneurysm" eyes I was talking about.

https://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/sarah-huckabee-sanders-800x430.jpg

please stop

i now realize that my real trick ending should have been that after fake-trump launches his "you have dementia" attack, 35% of americans incorrectly believe pierce has dementia, and fox demands and obtains his "retirement" for medical reasons from any employment, and gop wants investigations on any in press promoting the idea trump has dementia.

― y'know, LIBS! libertarians, libertines, even liberians and librarians (Hunt3r),

cool movie bro

please stay OT

please stop

sanctimonious bullshit

ffs it's now off limits to liken someone's features to animals that in another context might be body shaming?

Is doe-eyed allowed?

huckabeesanders is a horrible horrible horrible person
i think i'm doing this right

making fun of her for being boss-eyed *is* body shaming though, whether you make the cow comparison or not xp

ugh

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/sen-gillibrand-urges-germany-back-nazi-jakiw-palij-article-1.3724744
^unsurprising that the feds aren't too engaged with extraditing this guy, gillibrand continuing to apple polish

i also explicitly stated that my issue with "cow" was about denying women subjecthood, not with body-shaming. it's that too in many many cases obv. but nice of hadrian viii to make clear my actual statements are not important compared to a chance to defend shitty sexist discourse against the threat of becoming "off limits"

U all

Search warrant reportedly executed for Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee e-mails, regarding a pretty audacious civil rights violation. I guess he got into an argument with someone on a plane, and when the plane landed Clark vindictively foisted his people on him?

NEW: According to federal court filing made public today, the FBI has executed a search warrant on an e-mail address associated with Trump surrogate and former sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. pic.twitter.com/Q0AdDqyAaP

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 29, 2017

MSNBC says its related to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adJxwWt4ij0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Clarke_(sheriff)#Airport_harassment_and_abuse-of-power_investigation_and_lawsuit

In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was

I just watched the first 10 minutes of that debate on youtube, and the disturbing thing is Reagan seems far more cognitively together, far better at putting a complicated sentence together than Trump has been in the past I don't know how many interviews. Although in the case of Trump, I'm still wondering whether it's dementia or just a case of being a complete moron

why not both

First debates are never good for the incumbent; they look distracted, respond defensively, and act irritably (think Obama, Bush II, Poppy too). Reagan only looks unusually ruffled in the second half.

Schmidt responds:

During our conversation in July, I learned the challenges this president poses in interviews. He can jump from an issue like the Russia investigation to a policy matter before going off on a tangent about something like his golf game. If you try to interrupt him, he often continues talking. Given this, I employed a strategy in which I asked questions about the most pressing issues of his presidency and then allowed him to talk.

Some readers criticized my approach, saying I should have asked more follow-up questions. I believed it was more important to continue to allow the president to speak and let people make their own judgments about his statements. It was the best way to learn as much as possible about the president’s mind-set and his views on issues like North Korea.

times now has a separate "fact check" piece on their own interview pointing out a number of the totally false statements made by the president. i guess putting this information in the publication of the interview itself is just too complicated.

just watched a bit of the Reagan/Mondale debate, he's super on point compared to Trump

that debate is Lincoln-Douglas compared to the last dozen years. Mondale was pretty damn good, very far from a fuddy-dudd.

tbf, that "getting the interview" essay probably revealed more of the president than the interview itself.

btw, the lot-drawing to break the legislative tie in Virginny is BACK ON!

also the Admin has dropped its attempt to block trans troops, at least for now.

Hello.

So the “coffee boy” whose main qualification was Model UN effectively sparked the entire Russia investigation. Just incredible. https://t.co/9ah69w4NpV?amp=1

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 30, 2017

greeks and their big mouths

Hilarious.

Don’t go drinking with Australians unless you’ve been practicing.

there is something poignant in the air about the older man with the real hair who served with distinction as a marine taking down the posterboy for silverspoon assholes with the fake hair

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/special-counsel-offered-publicly-signals-long-year-ahead/story?id=52049373

Mueller killed kids for lbj huh

bsab so eat your own

Mr. Papadopoulos, then an ambitious 28-year-old from Chicago

Had no idea he was from here. Wonder if there is a connection with that crazy Chicago freelancer who was reportedly working with a Russian cutout to get dirt on Clinton, and then later killed himself?

false alarm. still hillary's / dem's fault

http://img.fark.net/images/cache/full/C/CW/fark_CWajSdlOMxhHohe-R7V9hLApKaM.jpg?t=CxUzcfkXE-YE7SBVXcxmiQ&f=1514782800

Trump found an “oppressive regime “ he doesn’t like. No shock, it’s Iran. He and his twitter followers are convinced of course that his vocal support for protesters there will work better than Obama’s quieter methods.

Two new pieces of fuckery:

the DOT has declared the deal they had with the governors of NY and NJ to pay 50% of the costs of rebuilding the Hudson River train tunnel, one of the most heavily traveled train routes in the US, null and void; and

the Interior Department is rolling back safety rules put in place after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

this must be the great infrastructure plan we've been waiting for this entire infrastructure week

Yeah, who would have guessed the goal of his infrastructure plan would be to make American infrastructure weaker. Savvy operator, that Trump.

Keeps us on our toes.

we need to cripple that liberal outpost, NYC, in order to make america again

I'm sure a certain kind of Republican agrees!

NYC hated Orange Don first

Some echoes here of my feelings about the stock-as-fuck "Cletus Safari":

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/media-trump-country_us_5a449e8ae4b025f99e199ef8?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

That's funny. I've actually never heard the term "Cletus Safari," which I like almost I much as I liked the Idaho militia people getting tagged Y'all Qaeda.

Have we had an actually helpful piece on all the supporters apparently changing their mind, as reflecting in the polls that show how far even his numbers have dropped over the last year? Or maybe that gets filed under those pieces I've scanned where people like him but don't support him or support him but don't like him or don't like or support him but still want to give him some time.

Cletus safari was invented here iirc?