90 thoughts on “Balder-dash!”

  8. Craig – All the best to your dad.  Home always feels better.

    I agree that if an area isn’t progressive, don’t push it.

     

  9. “Beware False Profits”

    ”If Jesus Returned to America, Trump Would Have Him Deported”

  11. ap story in startribune:

    Gates, star witness against Manafort, concludes testimony

    [….]
    Prosecutors sought to soften the blow of the cross-examination by asking Gates to acknowledge his own crimes, including a lie to Mueller’s team in February. But Gates nonetheless faced aggressive questioning by Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, who at one point asked him, “After all the lies you’ve told and the fraud you’ve committed, you expect this jury to believe you?”
    On Wednesday, Downing sought to counter earlier testimony that Manafort had encouraged Gates to deceive authorities by getting Gates to acknowledge that Manafort told him to be truthful about offshore shell companies and bank accounts during a 2014 interview with the FBI.

    The interview was part of an FBI investigation that sought to recover assets looted from the Ukrainian government under the rule of former President Viktor Yanukovych.
    Gates said under questioning Wednesday that he told FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers about some of the offshore companies that contained millions of dollars in proceeds from their Ukrainian political work.
    But prosecutor Greg Andres followed up by suggesting that Gates and Manafort were not fully truthful.
    “Did you tell the FBI that there was hidden income in those accounts?” Andres asked.
    “No, I did not,” Gates responded.

    Once Gates finished testifying, prosecutors returned to trying to make their case through documentary evidence to demonstrate Manafort’s control of offshore bank accounts containing millions of dollars. None of those accounts were reported to the IRS as required by U.S. law.
    An FBI forensic accountant, Morgan Magionos, told jurors that bank records from Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the United Kingdom revealed the accounts were connected to Manafort and his associates. She said Manafort’s passport was used to open many of them in U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds.
    A man prosecutors say has ties to Russian intelligence was also among the beneficial owners of some of the companies. That man, Konstantin Kilimnik, is charged along with Manafort with witness tampering in a separate case. Gates was also listed as an owner of several of the accounts.
    U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III has interrupted prosecutors throughout the trial to encourage them to speed things along. He poked fun at himself Wednesday as he haggled with the attorneys for 20 minutes over the number and type of charts prosecutors could present during the testimony of the FBI forensic accountant.
    “Judges should be patient. They made a mistake when they confirmed me. I’m not very patient, so don’t try my patience,” Ellis said.

  12. here’s one of the ones that Bernie and his backers lost to in yesterday’s primaries :
    Sharice Davids, a former MMA fighter and White House fellow, won the Democratic nomination in Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District in Tuesday’s primary, setting up a November matchup with GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder in a swing district.
    Davids has a chance at becoming one of the first ever Native American women to serve in Congress, alongside Deb Haaland, who won the primary in New Mexico’s 1st District earlier this year and is almost assured a victory in November. Davids would also become one of the only openly lesbian members of Congress.
    She defeated progressive labor lawyer Brent Welder, who had the backing of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and history teacher Tom Niermann, a relative moderate with the backing of local elected officials, to win the primary.
    She’ll now face Yoder, who is running for a fifth term. The 3rd District, which includes Kansas City, Kansas, and the wealthy suburb of Johnson County, is wealthy and highly-educated. Voters there have swung away from Republicans – and especially President Donald Trump – in recent years.
    Davids’ victory comes with the backing of EMILY’s List, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads backing her. The group, which helps elect female Democrats who support abortion rights, was drawn to her astonishing resume: The daughter of a single mom, she worked her way from community college to Cornell Law School to a White House fellowship while also mastering martial arts and competing in two professional MMA fights.
    “She’s fierce, she’s progressive, she’s a fighter,” a female narrator said in an EMILY’s List ad backing Davids.

    Democrats were confident any of three major candidates in the district could defeat Yoder. Trump is deeply unpopular there, with an approval rating in the mid-30 percent range.

    Trump endorsed Yoder’s re-election bid earlier last month, praising his work to increase funding for border security.

     

  13. The Liberty Tree is watered with the blood of (nra victims or unborn babies, depending on your opinion).

    Make Love Knot Wear.

    Better Bred Than Reds.

    Tariffs : Buying My Job With Yours.

    An Audi in Every Garage; A Chorizo in Every Pot.

    Wall Me In, Scotty.

  14. Underdogs, Not Overlords -Vote Dem

    Fine- You Can Keep Your Soda -Vote Dem

    Fly Your Flag, Don’t Wrap Yourself In It (You Look Ridiculous)- Vote Dem

    If You Decide Later That You Don’t Like Our Policies, Don’t Worry, They’ll All Be Reversed 5 Minutes After We Leave Office- Vote Dem

    We’re Not The Ones Who Stuffed You Into Lockers In High School- Vote Dem

    Piss Off Your Uncle- Vote Dem

    Everyone Makes Mistakes- Idiots Repeat Them -Vote Dem

  18. Im feeling so proud of my Mexicalli brothers….. Ice came to arrest 2 people…the whole plant is shut down by their cousins……just watch it all the way:

     

    YouTube thumbnail

  19. Millions lost on the spur of the moment…..the talk of separating children from their parents is all that is talked about……noting hits home like imprisoning your 3 yr old……later

     

  20.  

    Factory lost millions lost on the spur of the moment…..the talk of separating children from their parents is all that is talked about in the hoods……noting hits home like imprisoning your 3 yr old……later

     

  24. Or th is one that  those two nuts dont talk so much….but be aware that there is a lot of swearing going on.

  25. Sorry have a little of that story wrong….chased after it to see what if any new developments were going on…it seems that it was a racist foreman that was abusing some workers for a long time…..they had enough and walked out……

  27. So  Republicans claim that the reason the Dems have to get rid of Nancy P  is because she is NOT the candidate of change.  First of all.  WTF   How is she not the face of change?

  28. The goops have made and are trying to continue to get rid of Nancy P by making her the enemy.  People need to stand up against these bullshit attacks orchestrated by the Republicans

    What a bunch of cowards.  She stands up for all the things people here allege they care about but are willing to dump the person most likely to get them done.  First it was SF values and now she is the enemy of change

    She is the enemy of goopers

  30. crackers – Your 4:18 sounded exactly like a Twit tweet.   I didn’t know you did impressions. 🙂

  31. If Gooperz don’t like Nancy P, that’s either the best argument for her, or, it’s reverse psychology and they want her stay put because they think they can handle her.

  32. Either way, to heck with what Gooperz think about anything, the self-serving, pseudo-Christian who-urz.

  33. Hill.TV poll: Trump’s approval rating falls 4 points

     
    proval rating fell 4 points this week after getting a brief uptick amid news of economic growth, according to a new American Barometer poll.
    The survey, a joint project between Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, found that 47 percent of voters said they approved of Trump’s job as president when asked on Aug. 6 and 7.
    That was below the 51 percent of respondents who said they approved of Trump’s job as president when asked the same question on Aug. 3 and 4.
    The poll last week came on the heels of positive economic news for the administration, after the Labor Department announced on Aug. 3 that the 157,000 jobs were added to the economy.
    […continues..]

  34. daily beast:
    Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, isn’t the only one with secretly recorded audio of the president.
    Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell The Daily Beast that Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the infamous former Apprentice star who followed Trump to the White House, secretly recorded conversations with the president—conversations she has since leveraged while shopping her forthcoming “tell-all” book, bluntly titled UNHINGED.
    For months, it has been rumored that Manigault had clandestinely recorded on her smartphone “tapes” of unspecified private discussions she had in the West Wing. Audio actually does exist, and even stars Manigault’s former boss.
    One person confirmed to The Daily Beast they had heard at least one of her recordings featuring President Trump. Multiple sources familiar with the so-called “Omarosa tapes” described the recorded conversations between Trump and Manigault as anodyne, everyday chatter, but said they did appear to feature Trump’s voice, either over the phone or in-person.
    The mere existence of such recordings represent a dramatic betrayal of trust by a one-time Trump confidant who has since abandoned years of professed loyalty to the president and has apparently decided to profit off her years of closeness to Trump.
    President Trump particularly loathes the idea of being recorded without his knowledge, and felt especially irked and betrayed when news broke that Cohen had done so, as The Daily Beast reported late last month.

    Manigault didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.

  36. Pat

    If Kansas 3rd is any indication of the coming blue wave, don’t get your hopes up. Run a candidate that fits the district, you have to have a candidate that pulls in Republicans there aren’t enough Democrats.  So what did the Democrats nominate? A liberal, native American, lesbian. She might win on this side of the state line but not in Johnson county,

    BTW Kansas 3rd isn’t a swing district but there are enough Democrats that given the right  candidate they can win. An HRC clone might win. A darling of the left wing never.

    Jack

  37. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

    Salesman’s slogan : It ain’t meat ’til it’s in the pan.

    Better Salesman’s slogan : It ain’t meat ’til it’s in yer stomach.

    Best Salesman’s slogan : It ain’t meat ’til the paper work’s done.

  38. Dennis Moore won numerous times in the KS 3d. He was a far less friendly to corporations/execs and far more pro-environment than HRC. Also, HRC also won in the 3d, trump’s tariffs are bad for the farm, and women who despised HRC now despise trump & trumpistos like yoder. yoder will have a hard time holding Davids off.

  39. jack, remember what the article said:

    She defeated progressive labor lawyer Brent Welder, who had the backing of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders,

    so she’s at least right of Bernie backers

  40. the hill:

    Fox News analyst: Judge in Manafort trial showing ‘extraordinary bias’ against prosecutors
    Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano on Wednesday said Judge T.S. Ellis has shown “an extraordinary bias” against prosecutors in the criminal trial of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
    “I’m not happy with this judge,” Napolitano said on Fox News. “He’s making too much of the case about him and he’s showing an extraordinary bias against the government. If you feel that negatively about the government, you shouldn’t be on the case. Or you should keep those feelings to yourself, not manifest them.”
    […continues…]

  41. also at the hill:
    Ohio election officials on Wednesday found 588 previously uncounted votes in its hotly contested special election for the state’s 12th Congressional District.
    Officials found the votes in a Columbus suburb, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, netting Democratic candidate Danny O’Connor 190 more votes and narrowing his race against Republican Troy Balderson to 1,564 votes.
    “The votes from a portion of one voting location had not been processed into the tabulation system,” the Franklin County Board of Elections said in a news release obtained by the paper.
    alderson, who was backed by President Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) during his campaign, claimed a narrow victory on Tuesday night for the district which Trump won and which has been held by a Republican since 1983.
    O’Connor has said he has no plans to concede the race until all votes have been counted. According to the Enquirer, 3,435 provisional ballots and 5,048 absentee ballots still have yet to be counted, but have a deadline of Aug. 24. 
    State election officials will issue an automatic recount if the race’s final results show a margin of 0.5 percent or less.
    Republicans had expected to win the special election easily, but found themselves up against a high level of Democratic enthusiasm ahead of the midterm elections in November.
    The GOP hopes to maintain control of the House in November’s midterms, posing a stiff contest to Democrats who have to flip 23 seats in order to win the majority, many of which are in suburban districts similar to Ohio’s 12th District.
    Most political analysts say Democrats could sweep the House, with handicappers like the Cook Political Report rating more than a half-dozen GOP seats as likely or leaning Democratic in November and dozens of other Republican-held seats as toss-ups.
     

  42. new republic:

    During private fundraiser, Devin Nunes admits collusion can be a crime.

    The Rachel Maddow Show has obtained and aired a secretly-recorded audio of Republican congressman Devin Nunes speaking to donors at a fundraiser on July 30. In the audio, Nunes makes some notable remarks about the ongoing Russia investigation. As NBC reports, “Nunes also appeared to say that if a campaign received and released stolen emails from a foreign government — he used a hypothetical example of McMorris Rodgers getting secret information from Portugal, where his ancestors are from — there would be a criminal element to that.” These comments go against the thrust of a frequent claim made by President Donald Trump, that “collusion is not a crime.” As Nunes concedes, collusion could rise to the level of being a conspiracy with a foreign power, which is criminal.
    Nunes also claimed the effort to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein fizzled because of a lack of time, especially given the urgency of Senate Republicans pushing forward Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. “So if we actually vote to impeach, OK, what that does is that triggers the Senate then has to take it up,” Nunes said. “Well, and you have to decide what you want right now because the Senate only has so much time.” The congressman added: “Do you want them to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice, the new Supreme Court justice?”
    At a crucial moment, Nunes reflected on the fact that Republican control of congress was essential for defending Trump, saying “if Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones. Which is really the danger.”
    He  underscored the fact that “we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away,”

     

  43. repeated for emphasis

     

    nunes:   “if Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones. Which is really the danger.”….. “we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away,”

  44. Pat, Fox’s use of manifest as quoted below is manifestly wrong:

    “…Or you should keep those feelings to yourself, not manifest them.”

  45. Pat

    It just goes to show how goofy Bernies boy was, That she looked like the rational option.

    She is good people but she is not the candidate that will pull those moderate Republican votes in. If it is a choice of being uncomfortable with the  right vrs being uncomfortable with the left they will follow habit and vote Republican.

    Xrep

    by todays Democratic standards Moore is down right conservative. He was a law and order guy that proved himself as Johnson county prosecutor. None of the current Democrats have any resume or base of support in Johnson county and that is a requirement for winning the 3rd.

    BTW, I’m  looking forward to the governors race, grandma vrs the evil Kobach

    Jack

     

  46. Flatus, it’s an odd useage but probably within acceptable limits of manifest as a verb.

    display or show (a quality or feeling) by one’s acts or appearance; demonstrate.

    “Ray manifested signs of severe depression”

    synonyms:
    display, show, exhibit, demonstrate, betray, present, reveal;

    formalevince
    “she manifested signs of depression”

    That’s from the Oxford online dictionary.   But I agree it’s an odd use. 

  47. Jack, during our couple of year stay at Leavenworth in the early 80s, my residual memory was of a Kansas that was stoutly conservative as would befit a prairie state. The folks were hospitable and kind.

  49. Pogo, you got me there–can we make a deal? Something that will preserve each of our manifest destinies?

  50. flatus, most likely fox’s Napolitano  (per wiki:  served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1995. He is a visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School and has written nine books on legal and political subjects.) meant what he said if he was using the word derived from the Latin manifestus which webster translates to mean “caught in the act, flagrant, obvious”

    IOW, he says you can think it, be bias judging just don’t let anyone know you’re bias.

  51. Jack

    I’m glad Sharice Davids won the primary in Kansas.  It was a well deserved comeuppance for Bernie who pulled his stunt of backing a white male against an established Emily’s List backed woman.  She’s not a bomb thrower, just well matched to her district.

    About Sharice Davids

  52. Oh, Jamie, losing one’s pet is like losing a member of one’s family; my sympathy at the loss of Valor. Now we must worry over the rest of that family as well.

    Flatus

  53. I’m back from spending 2 days away at the fair.  We spent the night and had a great time catching up with old friends at the craftsmen dinner.  And 2 days of no politics was a bit of heaven!  Catching up on the comments now.  I take it that SFB is still president and still lying.

    Vote Democrat!

  55. Mr Jack,

    Yes, I think that a strong history of service in the district would be extremely helpful for a candidate. Dennis Moore was a prosecutor, but he must have been considered fair and competent, unlike say, arpaio or rOY moore. I dunno, ‘cuz I didn’t pay attention to him until he got into congress, so I’m just guessing about his career as a prosecutor.

    Does Davids have any local service record, or is she lawyer/martial arts entertainer without  many connections or history n the district ?

  58. X-r, you asked “Does Davids have any local service record…”

    looks like from the link about her Jamie posted that she has had a lot of community service with the local tribes and reservation in addition to any pro bono legal service which may or may not count in your book as qualifying

  59. as I recall, Obama when he ran for senate didn’t have much more “local service record” than she does.

  60. politico:
    The federal judge overseeing the Paul Manafort trial conceded Thursday morning that he made a mistake in chastising special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors a day earlier in front of the jury.
     
    Addressing the jurors before prosecutors called their first witness of the day, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis said he “may well have been wrong” on Wednesday when he slammed the Mueller team for allowing an expert witness from the IRS to remain in the courtroom while other witnesses were testifying.
     
    Typically, witnesses aren’t supposed to hear anyone else’s testimony in a trial so they don’t influence each other, but Mueller’s team got Ellis’ permission during the trial’s opening arguments last week to have the IRS agent in the court on a regular basis.
     
    “This robe doesn’t make me anything other than human,” Ellis told the court on Thursday morning after instructing the jury to forget what he had said to the Mueller team about the IRS witness. “You’ve got to put that aside.”
     
    Mueller’s team has been frustrated by repeated slapdowns from Ellis during the Manafort trial — now in its eighth day. Before court started on Thursday morning, they filed a written motion to formally protest how they had been called out over the IRS witness.
     
    The Mueller team asked Ellis to explain to the jury that the prosecution had done nothing wrong and cited a transcript of the first day of the trial last week showing that prosecutor Uzo Asonye specifically asked that witnesses be excluded “with the exception of our expert and our [FBI] case agent.” The judge and the prosecutor went on to discuss Michael Welch by name and his expertise. And the judge unmistakably approved the exception.
     
    “The Court mistakenly faulted the government for permitting IRS revenue agent Michael Welch, the government’s expert witness, to remain in the courtroom during the proceedings, when in fact on the first day of trial the Court had expressly granted the government’s motion to do so,” prosecutors complained in their motion. “The Court’s reprimand of government counsel suggested to the jury—incorrectly—that the government had acted improperly and in contravention of Court rules. This prejudice should be cured.”
    [….]
    n their letter, Mueller’s team said that the judge’s action left a “negative impression” of them. “The Court’s sharp reprimand of government counsel in front of the jury on August 8 was…erroneous. And, while mistakes are a natural part of the trial process, the mistake here prejudiced the government,” Mueller’s team wrote, asking Ellis to tell jurors he was mistaken and the prosecution did nothing wrong.
     
    Before the jury came in Thursday but after the session began, Asonye asked Ellis to address the issue. The judge snapped, “Alright, I’m going to take care of that.”
    [….continues…]

  61. on that rep devin nunes’ ““If Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones…” remark, rep ted lieu said:

    Under our Constitution, the duty of Congress is not to clear the President. The duty of Congress is to be a check and balance on the Executive Branch, and to pursue the facts wherever they may lead. Devin Nunes should resign for perverting the oath he took.

  62. “Devin Nunes should resign for perverting the oath he took.” 

    did lieu just call nunes a pervert?

  63. Flatus

    No worries other than the normal ones of nature.  Valor’s sibling Victory has fledged and appears to be strong and healthy.  Mr. P and First Lady have been caught canoodling on near by branches before going their separate ways until this fall when the canoodling gets down right serious for next year’s egg laying.

    Due to the heat, it has been a bad mosquito year for West Nile Virus in several observed nests not just the eagles but hawks and ospreys.

    During the season the Arboretum birds are my favorites, but I watch all the AEF webcams in case anyone want to distract themselves from the political nonsense.

  64. the guardian:

    [….]
    The conservative Laura Ingraham used her TV show to blame immigrants – legal and illegal alike – for destroying “the America we know and love” in comments Wednesday night that drew a swift backlash.
     
    “In some parts of the country, it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore,” Ingraham said on the cable network.
     
    Ingraham added: “Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people. And they’re changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like,” she said. “From Virginia to California, we see stark examples of how radically in some ways the country has changed. Now, much of this is related to both illegal and in some cases legal immigration.”
     
    The California representative Ted Lieu was among those blasting Ingraham’s remarks as racist.
     
    “Dear Laura Ingraham: I served on active duty to defend your right to make racist statements,” Lieu, an air force veteran and immigrant from Taiwan, said on Twitter. “America is not a race or demographic. It’s a beautiful & bold idea, based on life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. You @IngrahamAngle are no more American than I am or others are.”
     

  65. wapo:
    Newly discovered vote-tallying discrepancies have whittled down the lead Kris Kobach held over incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Republican primary for Kansas governor.
     
    Kobach, a hard-line opponent of illegal immigration who campaigned as a staunch ally of President Trump, originally had a 191-vote advantage over Colyer as of Wednesday.
     
    On Thursday, the state elections office said there had been an error in transmitting votes from Thomas County in northwestern Kansas, according to Colyer campaign spokesman Kendall Marr.
     
    “It looks like someone may have flipped a key or something,” Marr told The Washington Post. “That error shortchanged Governor Colyer by 100 votes.”
     
    State elections director Bryan Caskey confirmed the discrepancy.
    […]
    To complicate matters, the Haskell County Clerk’s Office said late Thursday afternoon that the secretary of state’s website did not accurately reflect their county’s numbers either. The Haskell County results should show 257 votes for Kobach and 220 votes for Colyer, instead of 110 for Kobach and 103 for Colyer.
     
    The latest adjustments mean Kobach’s lead over Colyer has been reduced to 121 votes.
    […]

    Kansas law does not call for an automatic recount in close races. Candidates may request a recount, and the cost is borne by the candidate or the counties, depending on the result.
    At Wednesday’s news conference, Kobach acknowledged his dual role as partisan gubernatorial candidate and nonpartisan state elections official. He said if a recount were requested in the race, the votes would be tallied at the county level but that his office would act simply as a coordinating entity.
     
    Kobach is not required by law to recuse himself from the recount process. Even so, some independent experts and Kobach critics have called on the secretary of state to recuse himself from the process entirely, arguing that his role as a candidate presents a conflict of interest. Kobach said Thursday night that he will remove himself from the further counting of votes, the Associated Press reported, but he said that the move will be “symbolic,” because counties do the work of counting votes
     
    Colyer demanded Thursday that Kobach stop advising county election officials.
    Colyer’s campaign said it had not focused on whether it would ask Kobach to recuse himself from the process in the event of a recount.
     
    “We’re certainly not at a recount right now,” Marr said. “We need to finish the original count.”

  67. The GOP’s success in demonizing Nancy Pelosi is remarkable and depressing. By any standard I can think of she’s been the most effective legislative leader in decades, instrumental in defending Social Security and expanding health care 1/

    —Paul Krugman.

  68. The depressing part would be the number of democrats who are assisting the GOP in their quest to knock out effective democratic leaders.  If you are a democrat,  stop doing that. “Now” would be a good time.

    — sturgeone

  69. Paul Krugman
    @paulkrugman
    7h

    Replying to @paulkrugman

    Yet Pelosi is ” controversial”. Why? Two obvious things: she’s a Democrat, and she’s a woman. Oh, and for whatever reason the media have never liked her. But I repeat myself. 4/

    View conversation ¡    

    Paul Krugman
    Paul Krugman
    @paulkrugman
    7h

    Replying to @paulkrugman

    Newt Gingrich was a blowhard who shut down the government in a fit of pique; Dennis Hastert molested teenage boys; Paul Ryan is a poseur whose only achievement is a budget-busting tax cut that isn’t even popular 3/

    View conversation ¡    

     

    Paul Krugman
    Paul Krugman
    @paulkrugman
    7h

    Replying to @paulkrugman

    There’s been no breath of personal scandal, which is amazing given the GOP machine’s ability to manufacture such things out of thin air. And compare her with recent Republican leaders! 2/

  70. It has been a busy week.  Between work and Red Cross meetings the days are long and very busy.  I have been enjoying over the air radio (quite old fashioned I am), particularly two of the channels broadcasting classical music in the DC region.  Those make my drives very comfortable.  My focus is on an overload of work in an understaffed program and living life.

    I remembered a little phrase that I am sure almost no one under forty would recognize, Hi-Test.  It was floating around in my mind yesterday when I said something about a computer product running on “Hi-Test” fuel and the man looked at me and said “uh?”, when I said that was an old phrase he laughed and agreed, he was old enough to know what it means.

  71. “…she’s a Democrat, and she’s a woman. Oh, and for whatever reason the media have never liked her.”

    she’s also old and in charge, paul.

    I can understand the gopers disdain for Pelosi;  like their leader, they like ’em young and submissive.

    the media didn’t like Hillary either. probably the same reasons.

  72. from last month’s rollingstone 
    Nancy Pelosi: ‘They Come After Me Because I’m Effective’
     
    The House Minority Leader on the midterms, impeachment, her own party, sexism and the sexist-in-chief
    [….]
    Republicans have made you a central campaign issue. What do you make of that?They come after me because I’m effective. I’ve made some very powerful, rich enemies. Whether anti-government people in terms of the Affordable Care Act, whether it’s Wall Street reform, going after them on climate, in terms of the fossil fuel industry. I’m pro-labor; they want to destroy labor. So they put up the money and go into these districts. I don’t think we should allow the Koch Brothers to choose the leaders of the Democratic Party. But that’s what they’re trying to do.
     

     
    You don’t see any value in spending money to bring your own poll numbers up?I never have. People that I raise money from – other people – say, “Let me create a fund; you should be spending money on yourself.” And I say, “I’d rather spend the money on the candidates who win rather than getting into a tickle contest with a skunk over some of this stuff.” I just want to win the election.
     
    Your critics say you’re too liberal–I’m [pro-] LGBTQ, I support those issues. I’m proud to. But they use that – they go into these districts and they say, “Too liberal.”
     
    San Francisco values–Which are the values of Saint Francis – “Make me a channel for thy peace.” You have a problem with that? I’m proud of all of that. I don’t think the [Democratic candidates] who say, “I’m not going to vote for Nancy” are disassociating themselves from the progressive agenda, or LGBTQ equality. They’re just responding to an ad in their district.
    And that’s OK with you?I just want them to win the election. But I do think that there are some districts where this isn’t as important as it was in Conor Lamb’s – that was a 20, 21 point Trump district.

    […]
    Have you ever been tempted to step away?If Hillary had won and the Affordable Care Act was protected – I feel very proprietary about the Affordable Care Act. She’d be a woman in charge, the Affordable Care Act [would be] protected. I could have happily gone home. Nobody in California gets Potomac Fever, believe me. So it’s not about wanting to be there. It’s just a question of, “Who can fight this man who’s in the White House? Who really knows the territory?” None of us is indispensable, but some of us have more experience and confidence in how to get the job done.
     
    And I can’t even think that they [her prospective male challengers] think it’s a good idea to say, “We have the first woman speaker, and now we’re going to say, ‘We’re not going to do that’” I mean, no. No.
     
    Is there a margin you need to secure that gavel? You talked about wanting to win 35 seats.
     
    No ,no. You only have to win [the leadership vote] in your caucus – and then you go to the floor [for the speakership vote]. People vote for the Democrat or they vote for the Republican. So I feel very comfortable about that. But I don’t feel like talking about it. My time is money, and mobilization and the rest. Part of it is messaging – and talking about me and what happens to me is the least important part of all of it.
    I think some of it is a little bit on the sexist side – although I wouldn’t normally say that. Except it’s like, really? Has anyone asked whatshisname, the one who’s the head of Senate?
     
    [Aide Jorge Aguilar who is sitting beside Pelosi] McConnell.
     
    McConnell. I mean he’s got the lowest numbers of anybody in the world. Have you ever gone up to him and said, “How much longer do you think you’ll stay in this job?” Nobody ever went up to Harry Reid and said that. Nobody ever says that to anybody except a woman. But it’s a thing.
     
    And you know what? You get the upside and the downside of it. The one thing I want women to know is that you don’t walk away from a fight. You don’t let them make your decisions for you. I don’t mean to sound arrogant. But I am confident. I am confident. 

  73. Yes, if you’re a democrat, stop assisting republicans.   Now.

    Al Franken saved our asses, and he got the green weenie for it.

  79. the guardian:
    Donald Trump is a “racist” who has used the “N-word” repeatedly, Omarosa Manigault Newman, once the most prominent African American in the White House, claims in a searing memoir.
     
    The future US president was caught on mic uttering the taboo racial slur “multiple times” during the making of his reality TV show The Apprentice and there is a tape to prove it, according to Manigault Newman, citing three unnamed sources.
     
    Trump has been haunted from around the time of his election in 2016 by allegations that outtakes from the reality TV show exist in which he is heard saying the N-word and using other offensive language.
     
    In her book, Unhinged, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian ahead of its publication next week, the former Apprentice participant insists that the reports are true, although she does not say she heard him use the word herself.
    She also claims that she personally witnessed Trump use racial epithets about the White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George Conway, who is half Filipino. “Would you look at this George Conway article?” she quotes the president as saying. “F**ing FLIP! Disloyal! Fucking Goo-goo.”
     
    Both flip and goo-goo are terms of racial abuse for Filipinos.
    […]

    At the time, she writes, she felt a “growing realization that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot and a misogynist. My certainty about the N-word tape and his frequent uses of that word were the top of a high mountain of truly appalling things I’d experienced with him, during the last two years in particular.”

    [….continues…]

  81. 100% agree that repubs do a good job of marginalizing successful and effective Democrats with much help from the Democrats themselves.  It’s as if some of us constantly think we need to be apologizing for our best and brightest.  I say….  WTF…  SCREW THAT!

    Craig…  still wishing and hoping the best for Daddy Crawford…

  82. I’d like to associate my elf with RR’s remarks especially good wishes to  Craig’s dad–

    I know from Mr C’s experience   — it is not the time to have penis envy

  89. Manafort trial in lengthy recess.  Speculation abounds.  Is he going to plead?  Did a juror find a way to his/her time in jail?  Did the judge decide to throw it all overboard and declare a mistrial?  This will be an interesting afternoon (without indictments – so far).

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