All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[JCAll]

If the GOP gains control of women’s uteruses I say we ban condoms. Why not? Your gonna take away a woman’s ability to choose why not take the mans as well? Probably not a problem for a lot of the old as shit Republicans sitting right now or the “family man” wanting to make it impossible for a young woman to be anything more than a mother to a child she wasn’t prepared for.

Another thought. Get research into males being capable of carying so this double standard bullshit can’t come up. You don’t get to decide how somebody else uses their own body. Everybody is equal or they aren’t.

I feel a lot of GOPers would be perfectly fine with that. Then they just need to ban child support and the circle of punishing women for having sex will be complete.

[Mister Mets]

An interview with Giuliani's estranged wife hints at a reason for his weird behavior of late.

Judith believes that Rudy’s relationship with Ryan is the first time he has cheated on her, and she filed for divorce mere days after it hit the news. Yet, when asked whether the frolicking led to the filing, she says, “Absolutely not.”

“It was an ongoing process,” she insists, “that began when he lost the presidential campaign.” Okay, then: a process of what? Aging, dementia, galloping halitosis; loss of faith, relevance, marbles … what? Maddeningly, she goes mum.

“For a variety of reasons that I know as a spouse and a nurse,” she seals it, “he has become a different man.”

“Nurse” feels like a clue, as does her repeated use of the word “enablers” to describe his posse. Rumors abound as to his drinking and he denied them.

It’s tricky. Even for the individual involved, it’s very hard to tell an alcoholic from a problem drinker from someone who’s simply going through a patch of overdoing it. There seems little doubt that Rudy has been known to overdo it. “I’ve seen him drink more in the past two years than I’d seen him drink in the past twenty,” a friend of Rudy’s told me — adding, however, that he’d put Rudy firmly in column three.

I decide to take the bait.

Last August, while hosting a barbecue with Judith here in the Hamptons, Rudy took a serious fall, necessitating an ambulance, surgery, and months of arduous therapy overseen by his wife whom, he told “Page Six,” he had taken to calling “Nurse Nancy.” I ask whether that fall involved alcohol. Judith declines to comment.

[BeastieRunner]

Team Mueller just announced it will let Trump write answers to some of the interview questions.

[Tami]

Team Mueller just announced it will let Trump write answers to some of the interview questions.

They are dropping bread crumbs. If it works, they might capture a really big Land Shark.

[InformationGeek]

You know how North Carolina Congressional Map was declared unconstitutional? Well, for the midterms, it is too late to change it or redraw it. How wonderful. It's illegal but we're stuck with it.

[Gray Lensman]

You know how North Carolina Congressional Map was declared unconstitutional? Well, for the midterms, it is too late to change it or redraw it. How wonderful. It's illegal but we're stuck with it.

That's because the court was too stupid to commission one outside of asking the NC republicans to redo it. They should have commissioned one right away and held in in reserve for deliberate delays.

[Tami]

Bob Woodward’s new book reveals a ‘nervous breakdown’ of Trump’s presidency

John Dowd was convinced that President Trump would commit perjury if he talked to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. So, on Jan. 27, the president’s then-personal attorney staged a practice session to try to make his point.

In the White House residence, Dowd peppered Trump with questions about the Russia investigation, provoking stumbles, contradictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool.

“This thing’s a goddamn hoax,” Trump erupted at the start of a 30-minute rant that finished with him saying, “I don’t really want to testify.”

The dramatic and previously untold scene is recounted in “Fear,” a forthcoming book by Bob Woodward that paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

Reince Priebus, Kelly’s predecessor, fretted that he could do little to constrain Trump from sparking chaos. Woodward writes that Priebus dubbed the presidential bedroom, where Trump obsessively watched cable news and tweeted, “the devil’s workshop” and said early mornings and Sunday evenings, when the president often set off tweetstorms, were “the witching hour.”

“It felt like we were walking along the edge of the cliff perpetually,” Porter is quoted as saying. “Other times, we would fall over the edge, and an action would be taken.”

After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.

Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” The national security team developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

Cohn, a Wall Street veteran, tried to tamp down Trump’s strident nationalism regarding trade. According to Woodward, Cohn “stole a letter off Trump’s desk” that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing.

The president’s family members, while sometimes touted as his key advisers by other Trump chroniclers, are minor players in Woodward’s account, popping up occasionally in the West Wing and vexing adversaries.

Woodward recounts an expletive-laden altercation between Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and senior adviser, and Stephen K. Bannon, then the chief White House strategist.

“You’re a goddamn staffer!” Bannon screamed at her, telling her that she had to work through Priebus like other aides. “You walk around this place and act like you’re in charge, and you’re not. You’re on staff!”

Ivanka Trump, who had special access to the president and worked around Priebus, replied: “I’m not a staffer! I’ll never be a staffer. I’m the first daughter.”

Such tensions boiled among many of Trump’s core advisers. Priebus is quoted as describing Trump officials not as rivals but as “natural predators.”

“When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody,” Priebus says.

[Mister Mets]

Oh hey White Power... :/

She's Latino, Jewish, married to a US Attorney, and clerked for Kavanagh.

J.D. Vance immediately defended her.

Zina is a friend of mine, and I’ve never heard her utter a racist remark. She was born in Mexico and is raising a beautiful family in her adopted home. Try not to let your lunacy shade into slander of good people.

Chris Hayes thinks the idea is ridiculous.

That tweet was overly glib on a serious topic, so I took it down. Yes, it's used as an alt-right symbol. No, I do not think there is *any* evidence it was being "flashed" today in the hearing and I think people shouldn't disseminate that claim or insinuation. <fin>

The twitter panic is a gift for conservatives trying to argue there are crazies on both sides.

[BeastieRunner]

They are dropping bread crumbs. If it works, they might capture a really big Land Shark.

My wife joked that he can't tweet the answer or write it in crayon.

[Tendrin]

Meanwhile, a 20 year congressman was ousted by a black woman in Massachusetts

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/demo...ry?id=57586476

Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley defeated longtime Rep. Mike Capuano in a closely watched primary Tuesday night, with energized Democratic voters opting to send a dynamic new voice promising bold leadership and demanding change to Washington over a veteran progressive.

Capuano, who was thought to be safe despite the challenge from Pressley, conceded just ninety minutes after polls closed, as returns showed him performing poorly in his hometown of Somerville, where he once served as mayor.

This is how you actually build.

[Iron Maiden]

Well I'll be damned... that's something.



We got video too...

Lawrence O'Donnell had the father Fred Guttenberg as his last guest of the night on his show. All the man said to him as he reached out his hand to introduce himself was his name and that his daughter was killed at Parkland. Well, the video says it all with the sour face Kavanaugh had as he turned his back on him. O'Donnell also showed a clip of Kavanaugh smiling as he talked about coaching his daughter's basketball team to giving him his "Dad" moment during the hearing. Jerk. I hope more people remember the look you gave a father whose daughter was murdered by a nut who had a gun he shouldn't have been able to get. He gets to see his daughter become a woman, to get a chance to walk her down the aisle if she gets married. Between this look her gaver the father of a murdered child and the prurient questions he put in that report to Kenneth Starr years ago, I have not use for this guy. He appears to be the typical self-righteous evangelical hypocrite.

[Kevinroc]

Meanwhile, a 20 year congressman was ousted by a black woman in Massachusetts

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/demo...ry?id=57586476



This is how you actually build.

The Democratic Party is going to look a little more like their voters. That's a good thing.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Republicans Act Like They’re Powerless To Stop Trump’s Attacks On The Justice System

A lot of GOP senators went radio silent on Trump’s suggestion that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should do his bidding. The craven and cowardly Republicans have zero interest in defying the lord and master of the Trump Party.

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By 2030, We Will Pass The Point Where We Can Stop Runaway Climate Change

But a big economic transformation now could bring 65 million jobs and save 700,000 from early death linked to air pollution, says a new report. Food for thought.

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Trump Really Seems To Wish He Were An Actual Dictator

President Donald Trump threatens to crack down on the news media ― just as the Venezuelan strongman has done. He urges his top prosecutor to arrest his political enemies ― just as the autocratic ruler of Russia does. He tells his citizens that he is the only source of truth ― just as the dictator of North Korea does.

And most recently Trump berated his Justice Department for prosecuting two Republican members of Congress who are “very popular” and thus risking his party’s hold on those seats in the next elections.

“It’s the kind of thing we see where a leader is trying to have an authoritarian state,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor who studies authoritarianism. “What’s incredible about it is that the accusation of incompetency is because the DOJ is following the law.”

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Carl Bernstein: ‘Rage-A-Holic’ Trump Is Now A National Emergency

Watergate legend is calling on Republicans to stand up to the president. Fat chance of that happening. Republicans are either scared of Trump and/or don't want to upset the apple cart that's put them in power.

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Trevor Noah To Boycotters: ‘You Realize Nike Already Has Your Money, Right?’

It appears that nothing is immune from being boycotted this week. Also, the stupidity of butthurt right wingers knows no bounds.

[Carabas]

That's because the court was too stupid to commission one outside of asking the NC republicans to redo it. They should have commissioned one right away and held in in reserve for deliberate delays.

I don' think the courts have any business doing that sort of thing. That seems purely a legislative matter.

[Gray Lensman]

I don' think the courts have any business doing that sort of thing. That seems purely a legislative matter.

That only works when the legislature has some honest intentions. Which it doesn't in North Carolina.