Voting the Party Line

by

by Doctor Science

The rest of New Jersey is going to the polls on Tuesday for state and local elections: Governor (& Lieutenant Gov. running mate), legislature (one state Senator and two Assemblypeople per district), county Board of Chosen Freeholders and Sheriff, and township Committee. There are also School Board elections, which are explicitly non-partisan, and a couple of ballot questions.

I won’t be going because I already voted by mail-in ballot. I knew months ago that I would be voting for Democrat Phil Murphy for Governor, and to re-elect my state Senator and Assembly reps, all of whom are Democrats. For the county and township offices, in the past I’ve normally gone over material on both Democratic and Republican candidates, choosing on a case-by-case basis. This year, though, I didn’t even bother: I voted the Democratic party line all the way down the ballot.

BarbedWireBirds_Lucas

When I image-searched for “party line”, I discovered that many people use it to mean a telephone wire where birds congregate. This is a stencil by a Brazilian artist, Lucas.

I changed my policy because over the past year I’ve repeatedly seen (apparently) nice, rational Republicans go off the rails–injecting anger, political rants, and nutty conspiracy theories into all kinds of conversations, activities and settings. It’s happened to me, to Mister Doctor Science, to Elder Daughter, and to my parents, and it’s just so exhausting.

Basically, I don’t feel I can count on a Republican not to derail a random Township Committee meeting because they’ve become exercised about uranium or a planned civil war or amoral college students or whatever the meme of the week is.

I do know a few Republicans who are consistently rational, regardless of topic. But I’ve been surprised and disappointed enough by some Rs I know personally that I’m not going to bet on the rationality of a random R politician. Judging by my friends, even if they’re rational now they might fall into the fever swamps at any point.

Local politics is usually not particularly ideological: it’s about small-scale, pragmatic issues, with lots of room for common ground and cross-party alliances. But these days my biggest disagreement with many Republicans seems to be about the nature of reality itself, and I can’t expect small-scale disagreements to stay that way.

I’d rather not vote the party line, but until Republicans break their conspiracy-theory habit I don’t have any choice. I don’t know if this can be done without a major shift in the conservative media landscape. A Harvard study of online media during the election found that news sources on or linked to by the left are broadly distributed, with their center of gravity in the center-left. On the right, there is no such thing as too far right:

Partisan-media-2016

Figure 4: Partisan distribution of top 250 most-linked-to media sources by total inlinks*
*”Inlinks” refers to the incoming cross-media hyperlinks to stories and media sources.
From Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, by Rob Faris, Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, & Yochai Benkler.

I have no idea what it would take to break this cycle. Removing a single news organization, even Breitbart or Fox, doesn’t remove the incentives that push them ever rightward, chasing and being chased by their audience.

I wonder—it’s conceivable that the incentives are not what they seem. It’s not clear to me that Breitbart is making a profit: everyone talks about how it’s funded by the Mercer family. FoxNews is highly profitable, but its tone and direction were set by Roger Ailes for political purposes. And then there’s the Russian-bot angle. Maybe the conservative audience is being dragged or lured ever rightward, and an actual, functional free market in right-side media would reset to something like center-right sanity. A scientist can dream!

358 thoughts on “Voting the Party Line”

  1. Very interesting study, Doc, thank you. But depressing too, because it’s impossible to imagine how your fantasy reset would actually take place, without civil war. And that eventuality is beginning to look, if not likely, then at least conceivable.

  2. My voting habits are and have been very similar to what you’ve described yours to be. But for me there was even a time when I would consider voting Republican just to break the near stranglehold Democrats had in my part of NJ in local (county and municipal) offices. I felt a complacent one-party dynamic was unhealthy and could breed at least some corruption. (Technically, I still do, but that concern has been overridden by others.)
    Aside from thinking that, as a general rule, Republicans have gone barking mad, I came to better understand how success in lower-level elections was important to the party, sort of like a farm system in baseball. So, even if I didn’t think Republicans had gone off the deep end, I would still have enough policy differences with them that, after coming to better understand how winning local elections helped the national party, I would be unlikely to vote Republican at any level.
    It is kind of sad, and I think it makes me disengage, at least in general elections, because it’s so hard to imagine voting anything other than a straight-D ticket. Republicans have turned me into a Demobot.

  3. Local politics is usually not particularly ideological: it’s about small-scale, pragmatic issues, with lots of room for common ground and cross-party alliances. But these days my biggest disagreement with many Republicans seems to be about the nature of reality itself, and I can’t expect small-scale disagreements to stay that way.
    I’d rather not vote the party line, but until Republicans break their conspiracy-theory habit I don’t have any choice.
    I completely agree about local politics. I suspect that it’s partly a matter of conspiracy theories being harder to sustain when the topic is road maintenance. Potholes tend to enforce engagement with objective reality.
    I rather disagree with the idea that voting for sane Republicans at the lower/local levels mostly strengthens the party nationally. And I really can’t see how the GOP returns to sanity without some new blood, which pretty much has to come from below.
    Yes, there will be cases, as we’ve seen in the Virginia Governor’s race, and before that with Mitt Romney, where previously (apparently) sane politicians go off the deep end. But to me that just means that winnowing can’t be a one-time deal.
    I would suggest, to anyone who thinks that we need two sensible parties, that you consider registering so you can vote in the Republican primarily. It’s not like that commits you to vote that way in the general election. And it may be the only way we break the hold of the crazies — make being sane a plus for getting nominated, rather than a handicap.

  5. It’s not like that commits you to vote that way in the general election.
    true. however, under most circumstances it would preclude one from then also voting in the Dem primary….so, not a very useful strategy IMHO.
    As to ‘sane’ Republicans, perhaps we need a definition of what one would look like. What public policies would they aver that would substantially differ from those of a center-right Democrat?

  6. What public policies would they aver that would substantially differ from those of a center-right Democrat?
    Quite possibly few to none. But the point, at least for me, is to reform the Republican party. If they end up looking a lot like today’s center-right Democrats, rather than what we see now, that would be a good thing. Right?

  7. but, we already have a full measure of center-right democrats.
    seems to me the shortest path forward is for folks who are nominally (R)’s to just cross the aisle and vote for the center-right (D)’s.
    let the (R) party die on the vine. at the national level, anyway.

  11. “seems to me the shortest path forward is for folks who are nominally (R)’s to just cross the aisle and vote for the center-right (D)’s.”
    Once this dangerous kabuki proceeds to the rumpublican party and its federal militias declaring martial law and rounding up the far Left … and killing many of them … no so-called wavering republican will dare run for office as a Democrat or vote for a Democrat out of sheer fear that worse is coming.
    https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/dispatch-from-bizarroworld.html
    They don’t want to have wear a yellow “L” around in public.

  15. If they end up looking a lot like today’s center-right Democrats, rather than what we see now, that would be a good thing. Right?
    hahahaha…from my standpoint as “extremist” left winger, absolutely not. You are basically arguing that (i’d guess at most) 30% of the GOP should wrest control of the party from the place where its base has logically taken it.
    Pure fantasy.
    Worse, when you vote GOP you are basically endorsing white nationalism, religious extremism, and the current version of unfettered Gilded Age capitalism.
    “Sane” Republicans are enablers, not reformists, because they do not, as a group, or even as individuals, come anywhere close to advocating anything that could remotely be called “reform”.

  17. but, we already have a full measure of center-right democrats.
    seems to me the shortest path forward is for folks who are nominally (R)’s to just cross the aisle and vote for the center-right (D)’s.
    But we really need two parties which are capable of governing. Otherwise we get stuck with the nut cases whenever it comes time to “throw the rascals out.”

  18. News flash….25 dead in Texas church shooting.
    a white guy did it, and he didn’t set a record. so, not news.

  20. Also barely news that Saudi Arabia is violently purging people, possibly with the advice of Jared Kushner.
    Yawn.

  21. But we really need two parties which are capable of governing
    we work with the parties we have, not the parties we wish we had.
    the (R)’s, at the national level at least, appear to be unresponsive to reason. what they will respond to is losing.
    when they start losing elections, they’ll reconsider their policies.
    when folks who keep voting for them in the hope of somehow bringing them back into the real world stop doing so, they’ll stop winning.
    at the national level, i’m pretty much gonna vote (D). i have no lever to bring to bear as far as (R) policy.
    it’s the folks whose votes they could lose who are in the driver’s seat. but only if they’re willing to vote other than (R).

  22. Thanks, Bobby. I read it and did give it some thought.
    I thought the most notable part was the observations that

    the number of genuine “liberals” and “conservatives” is far smaller than meets the eye. Most voters who identify with those terms are partisans first, and ideologues second.

    My take-away from that is that it should be entirely possible to redefine what it means to be “conservative” (actually, “Republican”) to something far less extreme. As the article notes, Trump has already done something of the sort — for all that he doesn’t seem to care much about the ideological positions that he nominally supports.**
    ** As far as I can see, Trump really only has two core positions:
    1) Trump is wonderful, and everybody ought to acknowledge it. Or else. (This includes individuals, foreign heads of state, countries, etc., etc., etc. Everybody.)
    2) Anything that Obama did, agreed with, or was associated with in any way should be reversed. Without reference to anything else.
    Actually, 2 is really just a reflection of 1, combined with the fact that Obama did a great take-down of Trump a few years ago, and Trump is still smarting from it.

  23. Bobby: when you vote GOP you are basically endorsing white nationalism, religious extremism, and the current version of unfettered Gilded Age capitalism.
    “Sane” Republicans are enablers, not reformists, because they do not, as a group, or even as individuals, come anywhere close to advocating anything that could remotely be called “reform”.
    Russell: when folks who keep voting for them in the hope of somehow bringing them back into the real world stop doing so, they’ll stop winning.
    I would say that those who are really “sane” Republicans are, indeed, advocating for reform of the party. But then, I may have a narrower view of what constitutes “sane” in this context than some.
    I would point out that there is an important difference between voting in a Republican primary, in order to help sane (or at least less insane) Republicans win there, and voting for Republicans in general elections. I definitely believe in the former. I find I rarely see someone in the latter who I could vote for, at least at the national level. (I think I mentioned in another thread a while back that Bob Dole was the last Republican I could bring myself to vote for in a general election.) At the state level, things are less uniformly dire.
    I have a question for everybody who insists that they will never vote for a Republican, even in a primary. Do you think that the country will be fine with only one even vaguely acceptable party? If not, where do you see a second one coming from? Do you think a new party will arise somehow — even though historically that has only happened when there was an overwhelming issue (slavery) which the two existing parties were ignoring. Or do you think that the Republicans will magically change direction, just because they start losing elections more — noting that, at least in California, a quarter century of electoral irrelevance has yet to see that transform the state party. (I see a few hopeful signs. But it’s been a long time coming, assuming it is real.)
    Seriously, how do you think this gets from where we are to where we need to be as a country?

  25. I’ve been telling people (including here), that D’s should start voting in GOP primaries. When the one thing that GOP officeholders fear is losing a primary, THATs where one should make their fears come to life.
    Sure, you give up influence in the D primary, but until one reaches the point where the *best* R is better than the *worst* D (which has not happened in quite a few years, and might never happen again), that’s a tradeoff worth making.
    But better to get a BUNCH of voters organized to switch primary voting, and *let the politicians know about it*.
    “Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! :

  26. Thanks, Snarki! Although if they start losing primaries thru being too crazy, the message will get through. Even without a PR effort.

  27. “Do you think that the country will be fine with only one even vaguely acceptable party?”
    No. But a country that is not fine without this body-snatched monstrosity of a republican party is still better than a country with it, even with the vaguely and barely acceptable democratic party we’ll be stuck with.
    “If not, where do you see a second one coming from?”
    Don’t care. But if any of the current crew of “republicans” have anything to do with the next second one, we can eradicate that too and try a third time. Like Ripley points out to the new as yet uneaten cast in each “Alien” sequel, we’re nuts to even want to go back to that planet for a second look.
    “Do you think a new party will arise somehow — even though historically that has only happened when there was an overwhelming issue (slavery) which the two existing parties were ignoring.”
    I expect so, given human endeavor. See answer to question #2.
    “Or do you think that the Republicans will magically change direction, just because they start losing elections more — noting that, at least in California, a quarter century of electoral irrelevance has yet to see that transform the state party.”
    No. But, wait a second, I thought that’s what YOU have been telling us these past years would happen, based on some local transformation you have witnessed in republicans, unknown to the rest of country, after they lose elections.
    😉
    “Republicans”, like velociraptors, Aliens, and
    Ebola only become more viciously lethal with each sequel.

  28. Do you think that the country will be fine with only one even vaguely acceptable party?
    That depends. Our Constitutional system pretty much dictates there will always be two major parties. This has been true since the election of 1800.
    If not, where do you see a second one coming from?
    I do not foresee a “new” party arising. I’d guess there may be a possible crisis based on representation, not party affiliation. The R’s will cling to Constitutional niceties while employing brute political force to maintain dominance (electoral college, small state advantage in the Senate, voter suppression, gerrymander). The Dems may finally invoke ‘democracy’ as they represent the politically denied majority. This could be a real crisis, but you never know.
    Or do you think that the Republicans will magically change direction
    Nope. You apparently do believe this. I mean really, Bob Dole? What was ‘sane’about him?
    Seriously, how do you think this gets from where we are to where we need to be as a country?
    The southern conservative block, with its proclivity to vote in a unified fashion has been a check on other political actors since the 30’s. This unity has been their marker since the ante-bellum era. Before they were solid Dems. Now they are solid R’s. The civil war continues. When you “sane” R’s finally figure this out, maybe you will get a clue.
    We threw them out out of our party over civil rights. I suggest you sane folks find an issue and do likewise.
    As always. Thanks.

  29. Heck, felon republicans now go directly from jail, collect $200 and immediately file re-election papers, with the support of lunatics who have White House creds on their resumes:
    http://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-michael-grimm-breitbart-news-dan-donovan-congress-michael-caputo-678318
    That’s some kinda Goodfellas confidence in the bright future of being republican assholes in high places.
    Rostenkowski at least had the good sense to go home and die after his incarceration.

  30. when they start losing elections, they’ll reconsider their policies.
    You would think so.
    But that’s not the path that California’s state-level Republican party has followed: instead, they’ve skewed further rightward as the moderate primary voters have deserted them.

  31. I have changed my voting habits. I always listened to or read every politicians positions and, maybe more important, their qualifications. Now they have to be notoriously bad for me to not vote Republican. I voted straight R except for the top spot last election. And will from now on. And despite the right wing social media assault this is backward:
    The primary source of this breach, to make a long story short, is the US conservative movement’s rejection of the mainstream institutions devoted to gathering and disseminating knowledge (journalism, science, the academy) — the ones society has appointed as referees in matters of factual dispute.
    The primary source of this breach is the leftward drift and politicization of the institutions we used to count on. The reaction, way overdone, is not the cause. Once people can’t trust any news then they will apply their outrage completely tribal.
    Interesting to me is the reference, and acceptance, to Ezra’ s conclusion that there is definitive evidence of collusion in a story about objective truth. The article itself is a left wing version of all the things it criticizes on the right.
    And, in this case for sure, the left wing media bias came first.

  32. What left-wing party? What left-wing media?
    Wasn’t always so, but now we have a traditionalist or hierarchy party and a capitalist party.
    Guns, limits on abortion and sexuality, and religion etc are not significant impediments to capital accumulation.
    Racism and sexism do limit human resources available for exploitation. Social services, if paid out of labor share, improve and pacify the working stock.
    If you can keep them from war, the trad party is a mere annoyance and as easily dealt with as Bourbons and Romanovs.
    The capitalist party is a goddamn formidable obstacle.
    QOTD from Paul Gilroy, British race scholar: generic fascism is the management by the upper class of a middle class by means of the oppression of the lower class.

  33. The reaction, way overdone, is not the cause.
    but the cause, even if it’s what you claim, is not the problem.
    the problem is that the GOP has substituted it’s own GOP-brand™ mythology for reality and forbids its followers from consuming anything else.
    and now we get to see the fcking conservatives supporting (tacitly at least) Nazis, Russians and an authoritarian know-nothing who;s major selling point is that he is good at dividing people.
    your party has lost it’s fncking mind. it’s a radical reactionary cult of personality.

  38. Count: But, wait a second, I thought that’s what YOU have been telling us these past years would happen, based on some local transformation you have witnessed in republicans, unknown to the rest of country, after they lose elections.
    😉
    Well, what I thought I had been saying was that I saw signs that I took to be hopeful. Not that they had managed to make significant progress yet. Cue the saying about the longest journey and a single step.
    And I’m pretty sure I also mentioned that California got a head start on the craziness. Which would mean that we aren’t anywhere near hopeful for the rest of the country. (Even assuming that there aren’t big swathes, which there are, of the country where California level Republican crazy would still be a huge step towards sanity.)

  39. your party lost its mind decades ago, was my point.
    uh huh.
    well, as long as you get to blame someone else…

  40. I mean really, Bob Dole? What was ‘sane’about him?
    Seriously? Have you been paying attention to the Republican Presidential candidates since???

  41. The Democrats are now the conservative party, trying to keep what we already have – things gained under the New Deal and Great Society.
    The Republicans want to destroy them. They are a revolutionary party, even if their aims are to return the United States to some imagined past glory. Retrograde revolutionaries are not conservatives.

  42. What year did LBJ begin pushing Civil Rights legislation?
    https://www.snopes.com/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/
    “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
    Pretty damned prescient regarding what has transpired in rumpdom, for a Southern Democrat who, for all the right reasons, lost his political mind.

  43. Seriously?
    Absolutely. Dole gets a lot of press for being a “moderate”,, but the key takeaway is this nugget:
    “Mr. Dole spent years pushing big tax cuts, railing at regulations and blocking international treaties. His party actively courted the religious right in the 1980s and relied on racial innuendo to win elections.”
    That is not moderation. It is the BS GOP party line that drove them into the ditch they now find themselves in.
    There are people who opine that the GOP went off the rails with the Tea Party movement, or maybe the Gingrich Revolution, or Reagan, or Goldwater. The roots go deeper–the abandonment of Reconstruction in 1877 was the start. The supine surrender to big business is the beating heart of their apostasy. The rest….window dressing.

  44. In 1996, Dole proposed going after the children of deceased Medicare recipients for the bills the latter ran up during their lives.
    Like McCain, there’s nothing like the stigmata wounds of war to advance a right wing political career.
    Unlike Reagan’s horse in World War II, of course, their wounds were real. Reagan avoided overseas duty because of inferior eyesight.
    My Dad was blind as a bat without his glasses from an early age, and served four years in the jungles of New Guinea.
    George McGovern killed more enemies of America during his military service than the other two and many more combined, but …. you know, taxes and gummint for something other than war in bullshit America.

  45. I would say that those who are really “sane” Republicans are, indeed, advocating for reform of the party.
    That’s cool, wj, I appreciate your point of view here. I’d just ask you to consider voting off of the (R) ticket when that makes sense.
    Which, I suspect you already do.
    Personally, I don’t mind voting for (R)’s when it makes sense. But I live in MA, where (R)’s are people like Charlie Baker and Bill Weld.
    Marty, that “leftward drift” you refer to dates from the end of the 19th C / turn of the 20th. How anyone can refer to a “leftward drift” over the last 40 years or so of American history escapes me.

  46. But that’s not the path that California’s state-level Republican party has followed: instead, they’ve skewed further rightward as the moderate primary voters have deserted them.
    Either of two extremes allow a party to embrace insanity: where you can’t lose no matter what, or where you can’t win no matter what. California has become, of course, the latter situation for Republicans. States where both parties have a reasonable chance are getting rare, and I expect they will get rarer.
    The 2016 elections illustrated two long-term regional trends: the Midwest has been drifting red, and the West has been drifting blue. State-wide votes (governor, US Senators) in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio were pointing the direction. I didn’t anticipate the Presidential vote in those places to swing last year because of the awfulness (IMO) of the Republican candidate, but the trend was clear.
    At the same time, four western state legislative chambers flipped from red to blue (one in NM, two in NV, one in AK). I’m really interested in the Washington State special elections tomorrow. I think it likely that in 2018 the blue side will pick up another legislative chamber (Colorado) and two governors (NM, NV). Clinton did surprisingly well in AZ.

  47. wj:
    I agree that “it should be entirely possible to redefine what it means to be “conservative” (actually, “Republican”) to something far less extreme.” I’m arguing (perhaps too obliquely) that this redefinition can only be done by right-wing media.
    My own local experience is that I can’t count on moderate, sane Republicans to stay that way. Policy differences are almost irrelevant compared to *reality* differences.
    Example: over the summer, the chair of the NJ Division of the US Fencing Association had to resign after he made a bog-standard inquiry about event planning into an issue of his personal politics. Mr Dr Science has a lot of inside knowledge about the people involved, and it was an egregious, unnecessary *mess* — all because this guy got so riled up from RW media.
    Our daughter had to break off with one of her D&D groups after Charlottesville, because her friends were “just playing devil’s advocate” to defend Nazis. (Warning: Jewish people take that shit personally.)
    And that’s not even getting into all the conspiracy theories that can break through at any time, into what you thought was a normal conversation.

  48. russell, I think the leftward drift in the media accelerated over the last 40 years. You simply cant find an unbiased mews source on tv, and haven’t been able to for decades.
    The ultimate reaction to that on cable tv was the all right all the time news sources that support and empower the farther right because, wel no news is unbiased so they might as well lock in their viewers.
    In the absence of any news that even resembles, well, news. The opinions will not adhere to any semblance of accurate, much less even handed. When I read that the right makes up its own news, my reaction is that everyone does that.
    John Dickerson actually asked one probing question to a Democrat this weekend, for the first time in months. But just once and let him get away with smirking at the idea that buying info from Russia was somehow ok as long as Democrats did it.
    As an aside I really was laughing at Warner quoting the Republicans that “the important thing is whether the information is true, not where it came from” .
    Except of course we have a special council and a grand jury proving that statement is false.

  49. As an aside I really was laughing at Warner quoting the Republicans that “the important thing is whether the information is true, not where it came from” .
    Except of course we have a special council and a grand jury proving that statement is false.

    So, Chelsea Manning shouldn’t have had any jail time? And no problem publishing all the “evidence of blatant war crimes” that resulted?
    I’m sure you’ll get that weasel to dance, if you try.

  50. the idea that buying info from Russia was somehow ok as long as Democrats did it.
    FFS. you’re through the looking glass.
    you’re equating someone looking for evidence of Trump’s ties to Russia with Trump’s ties to Russia.

  51. A couple of years back we had local Republican insanity break out. While the school board is nominally non-partisan — in the sense that no party affiliation appears on the ballot — the parties do endorse and fund candidates. Three Republicans got elected, and a year later, decided to kill the AP American History class because it wasn’t rah-rah enough about the Founders, free markets, etc.
    This is a recall state, and all three got recalled (sufficient signatures reached in record time — folks with the petitions set up outside public libraries and there were people waiting in line to sign). In addition to the “let’s whitewash history” problem, there’s the issue of whether people dumb enough about tactics to take on AP students and their parents in a well-to-do suburban district are bright enough to let near the schools at all.

  52. When I read that the right makes up its own news, my reaction is that everyone does that.
    There’s difference between having a bias and making up your own news. You seem to be talking about outlets such as WaPo and NYT, as opposed to Occupy Democrats (or whatever other fringy-left sources I doubt anyone here pays much attention to). Everyone has a bias. Some try to acknowledge and account for it as best they can. Others embrace it and turn it into an overt agenda.
    So, when you write:
    The ultimate reaction to that on cable tv was the all right all the time news sources that support and empower the farther right because, wel no news is unbiased so they might as well lock in their viewers.
    you seem to be admitting that there’s a difference. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps you can list examples of the kind of “all right all the time” sources your referring to and do the same for those with a leftward bias so we can have some idea of how they compare.

  53. Either of two extremes allow a party to embrace insanity: where you can’t lose no matter what, or where you can’t win no matter what. California has become, of course, the latter situation for Republicans. States where both parties have a reasonable chance are getting rare, and I expect they will get rarer.
    The thing about California these days is, the primaries (except for President) are open to anyone. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, get to the general election. Lately, we often have two Democrats facing each other in the general. When a Republican does make it, it’s by virtue of being moderate — not just “moderate for a Republican”, but actually moderate. Without closed primaries, the need to cater to the crazies goes away.
    The party organizations are still pretty crazy. (Democrats, too, just nowhere near as much.) But the people we have available to vote for in the general election are more moderate, on both sides, than what we used to see. Which I think is great.

  54. I suppose I should add the caveat that the need to cater to the crazies goes away, except when it comes to fund-raising. I have the sense, although I may be wrong, that there are some seriously rich, and seriously nuts, folks who have become big donors. If you don’t want to go down the path of insanity, you have to look a lot further, and a lot wider, than someone who is willing to go full-on crazy for a mega-donor.

  55. You simply cant find an unbiased mews source on tv
    I’ll defer to you on this, I have no idea what the cultural biases of TV newscasts are. I don’t get news of any kind from TV. No doubt that immediately tags me as some kind of elitist, if so, so be it. TV is not a high-quality source for factual information, it’s an entertainment medium.
    All of that said, the last 40 years has seen the emergence of the entire doctrinaire RW media blizzard. Not a “bias”, an explicit partisan agenda.
    For which I do not blame the “left wing bias” of the mainstream, I actually think the relaxing of restrictions on broadcast licenses had a lot to do with it.
    You can, nowadays, say any damned thing you like on the TV or radio, and are under no obligation to afford an opportunity for other points of view to weigh in. Restrictions on ownership share within a given market, also gone or drastically reduced.
    We all get to live in our own silos now. The RW’s is just much, much, much more entrenched than any alternative.
    Nowadays we have not just Fox but Sinclair News, Clear Channel, and on and on. Literally, a propaganda industry.
    Which does not exist on the left.

  56. you’re equating someone looking for evidence of Trump’s ties to Russia with Trump’s ties to Russia.
    Yep.

  57. “There’s difference between having a bias and making up your own news.”
    No, there really isn’t. One of the things I spent time on as a father was teaching my kids that a little lie is as bad as a big lie, sometimes worse. Either way, once exposed, people don’t believe you, or smart ones don’t. Spinning a story, or just underreporting it, or sensationslizing opinions as facts are all lies. The staple of WaPo. NYT is less sensational but more apt to put an opinion piece out disguised as fact. Both always tell one side of the story. From what I hear that makes them the left corollary to Fox News.
    Then you have TPM and Breitbart. There are fewer bizarre left sites than bizarre right sites, but they are there. I blame the Russians.
    Everyone believes what fits their world view. Sometimes those overlap, sometimes they aren’t quite the same, sometimes they seem outrageous.
    Some people believe that buying information from the Russian government is ok if it was to get the goods on Trump, but not ok if it was to get the goods on Clinton because thats, different. That would be colluding to sway the election in my preferred direction.
    I mean, ten
    million documented dollars changed hands. Was laundered through a lawyer and the information was delivered and released. It isn’t even a question.
    And, DNC trickery.
    And I’m the one through the looking glass? I’m deranged because I think she’s crooked? Those are facts, they arent Vince Foster conspiracies.they really should take some of the shine off.
    At least I despise the lying con person on the right as much as I despise the one on the left.
    I just like most of his likely policies better.

  58. Some people believe that buying information from the Russian government is ok if it was to get the goods on Trump, but not ok if it was to get the goods on Clinton because thats, different. That would be colluding to sway the election in my preferred direction.
    I think you’re confused about who did or is suspected of doing what.
    Of course, every election has people colluding to sway the outcome. That’s kind of the whole point. It’s a question of who they worked with and whether or not that violated the law.

  59. Some people believe that buying information from the Russian government is ok if it was to get the goods on Trump, but not ok if it was to get the goods on Clinton because thats, different.
    Marty, the question is, who do you think bought information from the Russian government to get the goods on Trump? As far as I am aware this is not a description of anything that happened, but if you can point me towards something I would be grateful. If you are talking about the Steele dossier, this is not an accurate characterisation, for reasons that can be gone into, but I’ll wait to see if this is what you meant.

  61. The staple of WaPo. NYT is less sensational but more apt to put an opinion piece out disguised as fact. Both always tell one side of the story.
    Nearly every “left winger” I come in contact with will go to great lengths to refute this as they see the mainstream press as just another tool of the capitalists or “the deep state” (note how both left and right now use similar terms…telling, no?).
    Even mainstream lefties will tell you of the rightward tilt of the NYT and WaPo, especially when it comes to economics, foreign relations (there is a party line there), and “free” trade. Dean Baker points this bias out on a daily basis.
    So no. The whole frame asserting a left wing bias of the mainstream media is false.
    Your entire argument is constructed on a false premise.

  63. The information in the Steele dossier was elected through payments to various sources, including Ukrainian and Russian officials. I’m curious how that’s not collusion.

  64. NYT is less sensational but more apt to put an opinion piece out disguised as fact. Both always tell one side of the story.
    I stopped reading the NYT after the run-up to the Iraq War. Because they, literally, published bullshit they got straight from Cheney’s crew. Literally. And then Cheney’s crew would cite the NYT as proof that even The Liberal NYT saw things their way.
    We may not have gone to war in Iraq had the NYT newsroom not been in f***ing love with their “access to the White House”.
    So, not such a successful organ of left-wing propaganda.
    If by TPM you mean Talking Points Memo, equating them with Breitbart is insane.
    Different sources have different points of view, and in general yes, they present “their side” of the story.
    Some sources plainly traffic in bald lies. Not the same thing. Most of them are RW.
    Some people believe that buying information from the Russian government is ok if it was to get the goods on Trump, but not ok if it was to get the goods on Clinton because thats, different.
    I think you’re talking about the Steele dossier. If I’m mistaken in that, please feel free to correct me.
    To reiterate the point cleek made upthread, the Steele dossier was compiled by an English national, formerly of the MI6, to document connections between DJT and his campaign and the Russians.
    Folks associated with the Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS, a private strategic intelligence company based in DC, for that information. Fusion GPS paid Michael Steele.
    “The Russians” do not appear in the chain of payments. They were (one of) the subjects, not the authors, of the dossier.
    *About* the Russians. Not *purchased from* the Russians.
    Please think through these things, at least at a basic level, before building your point of view on them. It matters.

  65. Wow, that vox piece was really an unbiased interpretation of the facts. But absolutely illustrative of everything I’ve said.
    It’s not the same because Steele is a professional investigator, huh? It is not the same because the Clinton campaign didn’t pay all the money for it, huh?
    And so on. Meanwhile we get “That guy knows Russians” like ever person involved in big business and big government don’t know Russians.
    It is a really stupid set of arguments.

  66. The information in the Steele dossier was elected through payments to various sources, including Ukrainian and Russian officials. I’m curious how that’s not collusion.
    First, let’s see a cite. Second, if the Clinton campaign and/or DNC have no contact with these alleged Ukrainian and Russian officials (or knowledge of each other’s involvement!), then there would be no collusion. Unless collusion means something different to you.

  67. And “people close to the Russian government” were the sources cited in the dossier. In fact, if much of it is true, common sense says no other source could have provided it.

  68. It’s not the same because Steele is a professional investigator, huh?
    Right, and he’s not a Russian operative.
    It is not the same because the Clinton campaign didn’t pay all the money for it, huh?
    You’re missing the point. Republicans started the whole thing off and much of it was compiled prior to the Democrats being involved. The point being that Trump’s contention that it’s purely Democratic propaganda and entirely false is not a particularly good one.
    Meanwhile we get “That guy knows Russians” like ever person involved in big business and big government don’t know Russians.
    I sort of agree with you on this. The problem is that Trump publicly urged the Russians to dig up Clinton’s emails and that Donald Jr. met with Russians under the pretense that they had dirt on Clinton coming specifically from the Russian government. So these circumstantial things take on a bit more importance than if they were being noted out of the blue.

  69. And “people close to the Russian government” were the sources cited in the dossier. In fact, if much of it is true, common sense says no other source could have provided it.
    So what plan did the DNC and/or Clinton campaign hatch with these sources? Did they know who they were? Did they attempt to meet? Did they promise to ease sanctions or suggest some other quid pro quo?

  71. paying a non-Russian guy to look for info isn’t collusion with Russia.
    if i hire someone to sniff around for information about X’s association with Russia, he might end up talking with someone in Russia, even people close to Putin. that seems obvious. and that’s not collusion.
    if my staff is on-the-down-low friendly with Putin and they are asking people close to Putin to provide me with information about Y because it might help me win the election, and i’m making happy sounds about ending sanctions against Russia, or otherwise setting US policy to benefit Russia, that just might be collusion.

  72. paying a non-Russian guy to look for info isn’t collusion with Russia.
    I like this. Short and sweet. Game over.

  74. What about inner-circle campaign members meeting personally with actual Russians (i.e. non-nonrussian) specifically about dirt on Clinton (I love it!) and bringing up the possibility of easing sanctions? What about the fact that the Russians didn’t interfere with the election to help Clinton, but to help Trump?
    The Russians interfered in the election to HELP TRUMP!!! Was that Clinton’s idea?

  75. The Russians interfered in the election to HELP TRUMP!!!…
    … at least partially because they were assuming that Trump would help them out when he became President – an assumption apparently built on long and deep and frequent contacts with at least a half-dozen people on Trump’s staff including Trump’s own family members. that’s the collusion. quidski pro quovich.

  77. Even mainstream lefties will tell you of the rightward tilt of the NYT and WaPo, especially when it comes to economics, foreign relations (there is a party line there), and “free” trade. Dean Baker points this bias out on a daily basis.
    So no. The whole frame asserting a left wing bias of the mainstream media is false.
    Your entire argument is constructed on a false premise.
    This. And it’d be nice if Marty would at least acknowledge this dichotomy.
    I don’t know that I see people belaboring ‘the well known right-wing bias of the MSM’ that often, but that’s not because nobody thinks it’s a thing. It’s primarily because I think the folks belaboring its supposed left-wing bias have made their complaints common-enough knowledge that those of us who might otherwise be tempted to point out the obvious right-wing biases take a second look and realize that something more complicated is going on.
    Which is to say, that while I think the MSM, including the NYT, are more Right than Left (the rightward Overton gallop of the ‘center’ axis notwithstanding) or at least more corporatocratic, I’m also willing to acknowledge that Marty and others with similar viewpoints probably slap their foreheads in outrage almost as often as I do when reading them.
    The editors of the NYT would probably interpret this equally frustrated reaction as proof that their coverage is ‘balanced’, blind to the real problem — that their coverage and editorial choices are actually just uniformly terrible, and that covering opposing viewpoints equally isn’t the same as uncovering the truth.
    And that’s the NYT. Things just go downhill from there. Wave to ‘neutral’ 24 hour cable news outlets on your slide down to tv stations covering a ‘string’ of two or three local purse snatchings as if it were the scariest crime wave since Lindisfarne.
    However, the ‘antidote’ to all of this, if such there be, is not to retreat into a hyper-partisan fact-free zone, like Fox News or Breitbart. You don’t get to excuse the excesses of the latter by pointing to the failures of the MSM. (Also, like it or not, there really isn’t a left-wing counterpart — a few blogs, maybe, but those are hard pressed to keep even the RW blogosphere in sight, let alone match a 24-hour propaganda juggernaut like Fox.)

  78. There is lots of non Russian guys on both teams.
    While this may be true, what has it got to do with the price of eggs? The point is that there is no evidence, no nothing, to suggest that the Clinton campaign colluded with the Russian government against Trump. And, as others have pointed out, this makes complete sense because the Russians wanted Trump to win, as all US intelligence agencies agree.
    That the Trump campaign colluded looks close to being conclusively proved, on the other hand. Consider all the contacts lied about by Flynn, Sessions, Kushner, Donnie Jnr (and no doubt many more), and the suspicious fact that Trump continues to delay implementing the sanctions mandated by Congress.
    I understand that you hate HRC, and would put nothing past her or her people, and other Dems. But there must be some crimes you would concede she did not commit?

  79. I’m curious how that’s not collusion.
    I think you are missing the point here.
    Yes, it is obviously so that funds from the Clinton campaign, or folks acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign, were used to pay for oppo research on Trump. It’s virtually certain that some of those dollars were paid by Steele to people in Russian government or intelligence circles, in return for raw information.
    So yes, “they did it too!!”.
    If all that Trump, or his kids, or folks in his campaign, were suspected of was buying oppo research on Clinton from J Random Russian, there would not be a criminal investigation.
    Paying for oppo research, even from foreign parties, is likely not illegal. It certainly doesn’t meet the legal definition of “collusion” because no such legal definition exists, at least in any way relevant to the situation we’re talking about.
    The relevance of the Steele dossier is the claim that folks in the Trump campaign *participated with folks in or associated with the Russian government* to interfere in the US election in Trump’s favor. And that Trump personally had been cultivated as a resource by the Russian government for at least the last five years. And that the Russian government had compromising information about Trump that it could use to blackmail him in order to influence US policy. All to further geopolitical goals of their own, in conflict with US policy.
    As it happens, this resonates with other, independent intelligence findings about direct Russian interference in the US election.
    So, there was an initial investigation by the FBI, with which Trump interfered by firing Comey. Which raises a suspicion of obstruction of justice, so now we have Mueller.
    And, given Trump’s personal business history, and the resumes of his close advisors, let alone their behavior during the campaign, Mueller’s search for criminal behavior is likely to be a matter of shooting fish in a barrel.
    The number and range of avenues that Mueller could, and may well, take go well beyond “collusion with the Russians”. Whatever the hell that means, for legal purposes.
    Trump is an idiot. He should not have fired Comey, he should put down the damned Twitter machine and quit making stupid statements that may end up being legally actionable, he should STFU and let Mueller do what he needs to do.
    He won’t do any of that, so if he wasn’t dirty as hell to begin with, he’ll be up to his neck in a barrel of sh*t before all is said and done.
    The people around him – politically and otherwise – are crooks. And Trump himself is not an honest person. He shouldn’t have run, but he did, so now he’s being held to a higher bar, and he’ll probably have his ass handed to him before it’s over.
    Clinton is not my favorite person, both she and Bill are ambitious self-promoters. They also, to steal your phrase, advocate for policies that I prefer to the alternatives. So they received my support. And, they actually are intelligent, effective political actors, which leaves a bad taste in some folks’ mouths, but personally I find plain old competence to be of value.
    We vote for the candidates we have, not the ones we wish we had. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington was a movie, not reality. Welcome to the big show.
    Neither of them are culpable of anything remotely like what Trump and his crew are being investigated for.

  80. The Russians interfered in the election to HELP TRUMP!!! Was that Clinton’s idea?
    Well, yeah. But Clinton had already sold them all of our uranium and paid them $10m to boot. Beyond that, she had nothing. They wrung her out like an old dish rag.
    /rant of snark

  81. But there must be some crimes you would concede she did not commit?
    Marty has graciously conceded that Hilary most likely did not pull the trigger on Vince Foster.

  82. Unfortunately, this shades to the personal, but I think Marty goes wrong here
    One of the things I spent time on as a father was teaching my kids that a little lie is as bad as a big lie, sometimes worse.
    What, precisely, do you say when your wife asks ‘do you think these pants make my butt look big?’
    Lest I move all the way into the Count’s territory, It seems that anyone who can say that a little lie is as big as a bad one and not want Trump impeached post haste is missing a large part of the picture. The whole constellation of RW media sources have made it SOP to question any politician. That’s how Bannon and Breitbart gets its juice. So the whole ‘I have never met a good politician or a bad patriot’ is the engine that has gotten us to where we are.
    It means that everyone, including Russell, is compelled to call out the Clintons as ambitious self-promoters. It compels people to look at Obama and declare him one as well because rather than admitting himself to be half white, he played up is Father’s heritage (Dinesh D’Souza, please come to the courtesy phone).
    No one is as pure as they should be, so that requires that the ‘good guys’ of the Right, plugging back into Marty’s horror of falsehood, address the big lies done by ‘the left’, things like “the Vince Foster coverup”, “the truth about Obama’s childhood”, “pizzagate”, “the DNC staffer who tried to get out the truth” (had he been killed in a swimming pool accident, I wonder what would have happened) be cordoned off with a perimeter of little lies. Cause the other side’s lies are always going to be more pernicious. Thus little lies = big lies serves to create an environment where no one is working for the common good. As perfect an illustration of the Doctor’s point as one can imagine.
    And rather than try to create an environment where our all too human politicians could operate in a way that might make ambition and greed less problematic and less common, we let concentrations of money make it so it is impossible for them to not get dirty.
    The much cited profile of John Boehner bears a look with this in mind.
    But the story of Boehner’s 25 years in Washington is also the story of the Republican Party, the Congress and American politics in the post-Ronald Reagan era: an account of corruption and crusading, enormous promises and underwhelming results, growing ideological polarization and declining faith in government. The same centrifugal forces that made Boehner’s job impossible have bedeviled his successor, Ryan, and kept the GOP majorities in Congress from passing any landmark legislation in 2017.
    But we can’t do anything about that, because to do something about it would be leftish. Go figure.

  83. Trust is an odd thing, once lost almost impossible to regain. My wife knew the right answer before she asked and I obliged. Not the same.
    A few things.
    First, it’s not particularly relevant what the left thinks of msm in this context. The causal effect of decades of msm being perceived by the right as a tool of the left is not effected by the left’s defense of their media. I recognize the sincerity with which left leaning folks may believe they are not. It just doesn’t matter.
    Second, today and pretty recently both MSNBC and CNN have achieved the role of Fox news comparables. So yes, there are 2.
    Third, there is a lot of “Its pretty clear the Trump campaign actually worked with” with no evidence. In every documented interaction the campaign said no to anything beyond getting the goods on Hilary. And the day after the election all the Russian sites immediately turned to discrediting the result.
    Fourth, lots of splitting hairs. Steele is a private investigator, did he ultimately work for the campaign ? Yes.
    They were just trying to uncover his Russian connections. No, they were trying to get stuff to make him look bad. From wherever they could, including Ukrainian government officials who didn’t want him to win(?) and Russians who could be bought, or didn’t want him to win. The “Russians” are not necessarily of one mind.
    Last, I don’t know yet if there is any evidence Trump or his campaign worked with a foreign government in a legal sense or any sense, if he did then he should take the fall. So should Hilary and there is a clear money trail to follow that they lied about.

  84. So should Hilary and there is a clear money trail to follow that they lied about.
    Could you spell her name right? Thanks.

  85. Steele is a private investigator, did he ultimately work for the campaign ? Yes.
    lol.
    literally. i laughed out loud.

  87. So should Hilary and there is a clear money trail to follow that they lied about.
    Yeah, cleek, But what does that even mean? Who is Hilary? and who is “they”? And what does “lied” mean in that world?

  88. No, they were trying to get stuff to make him look bad
    yes, obviously.
    to make a 25-year-long story short, the Clintons are held to a standard that would make anyone else who has held national public office in the last 50 or 100 or 200 years give it up as a bad job and go find a nice lobbying gig somewhere.
    Whatever Trump or his cronies are guilty of is likely to emerge over time, probably the next few months. it is, i gather, a target rich environment. because trump is a crook, and he surrounds himself with crooks.
    I have no idea what kind of bullshit that crew was up to, from creeps like Stone, to crooks like “million dollar rugs” Manafort, to Steve “I heard the call of Roland’s horn” Bannon or his sponsor, Robert “what 7 billion dollar tax bill?” Mercer.
    you couldn’t make this stuff up.
    we’ll never know the whole of it, but just what we know so far is freaking amazing.
    i’ll look forward to further installments of “both sides!!!” as it plays out.
    as far as “calling clinton out”, the clinton’s are no different than anyone else who operates at that level. it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, nobody gets there who doesn’t have a serious fire in their belly.
    to the degree the clintons aren’t my favorite folks, it has as much to do with “new democracy” triangulating as anything else.
    then again, that’s what got bill and obama into the white house, and it’s what gave Hillary her solid popular vote win.

  89. I give Marty points for perseverance in the face of total opposition, even if he’s the wrongest ever.

  91. russell, I usually just let this go but, in this case, she is clearly being held to a much lower standard. To have a story about Trump all you have to do is say guy x who knew Trump back in the day has a friend who speaks Russian, and everybody nods and says “See, told you so”.
    Clinton hires a guy through a lawyer who lies about it, to get dirt from primarily Russian and Ukrainian sources whose motives are at least as suspect as the other Russians. Facts 10M, laundered through the lawyer who admits lying about it to investigators, uncorraborated dirt released specifically to impact the election and well, no big deal.
    That’s not a higher standard, as with Bill and the AG on the tarmac. it’s a free pass.

  92. Do have a story about Trump all you have to do is say guy x who knew Trump back in the day has a friend who speaks Russian, and everybody nods and says “See, told you so”.
    wait. do you even read the news?

  93. The collusion test ought to be obvious. It’s “has candidate X conducted their campaign in a way which makes it appear that they owe policy favours to a foreign government?”
    By that standard, paying foreigners for information isn’t a problem at all – the payment discharges any debt. Discussing bilateral relations with the Russian ambassador during the campaign while receiving various forms of electoral support is a big problem.

  94. To have a story about Trump all you have to do is say guy x who knew Trump back in the day has a friend who speaks Russian, and everybody nods and says “See, told you so”.
    there are all kinds of stories about trump.
    some are trivial and silly, some aren’t.
    Clinton hires a guy through a lawyer who lies about it, to get dirt from primarily Russian and Ukrainian sources whose motives are at least as suspect as the other Russians
    Clinton’s personal involvement here is, AFAIK, unclear. She is responsible for what her campaign does in her name, so if there was illegal or unethical behavior, she she be clled to account for it.
    Yeah, the guy lied, and if he lied under oath he should have the book thrown at him.
    As far as this, specifically:

    to get dirt from primarily Russian and Ukrainian sources

    Steele was hired specifically to go for Russian and Ukranian sources?
    maybe he was just hired to get dirt, full stop, and that’s where the dirt was. or, maybe he *was* hired to work Russian amd Ukranian sources, because that’s where the dirt was.
    Trump doesn’t just “know a guy back in the day who speaks Russian”, he has business partners who are Russian mafiosi. As in, guys who have done federal time for securities fraud.
    Lotta oligarch money getting poured into Trump projects. Smoke, fire. It’s a logical place to look.
    Remind me – why’d that (R) platform position on sanctions change again? Who drove the bus on that one?
    He shouldn’t have run. He could have spent his golden years crapping on golden toilets and being a general PITA, like he’s always been.
    He wanted in, he got in. Now Mueller is all over him like a cheap suit, with a mandate to look into any and everything he thinks seems fishy.
    In any case the “but Hillary..!!” thing is getting old. People have been trying to pin crap on the Clintons for 25 years. Relentlessly. They caught Bill lying about a blow job under oath. Everything else panned out to be… nothing.
    Time to give it a rest.
    Trump is a fool. Sometimes fate smiles on fools, sometimes it bites them in the @ss.
    Place your bets.

  95. He wanted in, he got in.
    Howard Stern, long-time Trump confidant, says the plan was never to win. It was to finish second in the Republican primaries, generating lots of publicity, then stick it to NBC on the price to renew Celebrity Apprentice. Stern says Trump is entirely unsuited for the job, and that the stress will kill him before his term is done.

  96. “Stern says Trump is entirely unsuited for the job, and that the stress will kill him before his term is done.”
    Silver lining!

  97. Gotta go with Michael on this one. No question Trump loved the campaign rallies. All those fans cheering him on; just what his ego craves in massive amounts.
    Which is also why he is visibly happiest when he manages to set up a campaign rally style event now. It’s the only part of the job that he enjoys. All the rest of it is either requiring him to do things that he dislikes (or flat cannot, as in is simply unable personally to, do and knows he cannot do), or continually discovering that he cannot run the executive branch (let alone Congress) the way he use to run his little (in the staff numbers sense) company. Which is the only way he knows how to run something.
    Not sure if the stress will kill him. But it won’t be surprising if it does.

  98. Face it, sheeple: Marty has sources of information and powers of discernment so far above our own that we might as well admit his reality is superior to ours. We are but dupes of the Liberal Media propaganda that Marty is too clever to fall for.
    I for one am ready to admit that Hillary is a crook and He, Trump isn’t; that the “death tax” is a burden on the middle class and mega-rich heirs aren’t; that “unborn babies” don’t go to Heaven but gun-murdered church-goers do; that global warming is a hoax, and, when Marty’s sources declare it so, that water runs uphill.
    IOW, Marty has convinced me. The rest of you can keep trying to argue with him.
    –TP

  100. I believe the Clintons (and Obama…and all US presidents and secretaries of state since at least Wilson) have committed crimes that carry the death penalty according to US laws. But since they committed them ‘on behalf’ of the US and not to line their own pockets* they were not punished (and if still alive will not ever be) for them in accordance with US laws.
    *it’s OK of course if that happens as a mere side effect of the ‘on behalf’ crimes or if there is at least a tiny ‘on behalf’ part.

  102. Well, Hartmut at 3:59
    Pat Lang is about the only right wing site I visit, for an alternative view on the ME. The link is about goin-ons in Saudi Arabia
    I read the comments, and comments linked to:
    Saudi Royalty Arrests Rock Clinton-Obama Regime
    “In a shocking development Saturday, the Saudi Arabian government arrested prominent billionaire Waleed bin Talal, a member of the royal Saudi family with deep ties to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”
    And Citigroup. John and Tony Podesta
    Now in general, I’ll believe Saudi crimes and accomplices get prosecuted outside SA when I see it happen, but I would not be at all shocked to see Mueller indict Clinton. Or maybe I would.
    War? Hell if I know. The “sides” are well understood SA-Israel-USA-Ukraine vs Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Russia-NovoRussia but honestly the players are just too complicated and corrupt for me to be able to untangle their webs.
    But yeah, very much looks like the pre-WW I sitrep. And China will emerge the winner.

  103. “What, precisely, do you say when your wife asks ‘do you think these pants make my butt look big?'”
    “Well, it depends, honey. Are we using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles? Both are legally-accepted tender. On the one hand, your butt is not as big as the billboard on which the Marlboro Man once plied his honesty, but on the other hand, it’s not so cute anymore that it would befit running a tiny, little advert on it regarding the hurry with which all of us should rush to purchase shoreline property in Boca Raton before supplies run out. Step a little closer, because I think what we need here is a diagnostic hands-on inspection by four out of five dentists, two of whom have offshore back accounts. Would you like the undercoating with that?
    http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/15/george-washington-spies-lies-executive-power/
    http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth/
    “No, there really isn’t. One of the things I spent time on as a father was teaching my kids that a little lie is as bad as a big lie, sometimes worse. Either way, once exposed, people don’t believe you, or smart ones don’t.”
    I did this too. Who doesn’t? For my son’s own good, I prevaricated about my personal experience with sex, drugs, and my training for selling encyclopedias door to door.
    Did you ever cut down a cherry tree, Dad?
    No. I left out the incident with the hawthorne tree.
    “When is it alright to fib, Dad?”
    “What line of business are you thinking of going into, kiddo, before I give you an answer?
    I’ve been lied to and cheated in a whole lot of different countries and cultures and the liars and cheats were admirably straight-faced all along the way, but I have to say America is exceptional in its herculean ability to straight face itself regarding the fragile politically correct lens of bullshit the entire enterprise, big lies and little ‘uns, it rests on.
    It’s 2017. It’s not a liberal fucking media outlet I could appear on to recite the miseries of slavery and be rebutted, because all points of view are equal in snowflake land, by some truculent mofo with the view that yeah but, slavery provided cradle to grave security.
    It’s our charm, the sheer chutzpah of it. Not saying we aren’t truth seekers, but the push back for centuries is, I don’t know, of Soviet quality.
    Putin is probably the best judge of it.

  104. I would not be at all shocked to see Mueller indict Clinton.
    Whatever Mueller does, Mueller does. If he indicts Clinton, so be it.
    All I ask is that folks either bring something legitimate or give it a rest.
    Those of us who don’t spend our lives with our eyeballs glued to Fox have grown weary of the freaking snark hunt.
    If she stuck a knife in her heart / suicide right on the stage / would that be enough for your wingnut lust? / would it help to ease the pain?
    Enough already. Sh*t or get off the pot, as my old man used to say.

  105. “The “sides” are well understood SA-Israel-USA-Ukraine vs Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Russia-NovoRussia but honestly the players are just too complicated and corrupt for me to be able to untangle their webs.”
    Bingo. You left out Hezbollah, but that goes under the Lebanon heading. I think Russia meddled, but I also think the coverage of Russiagate is blinkered and opportunistic. It’s part of a larger picture and that picture involves all the proxy wars being fought by the two sides. And it’s not very pretty on either side.
    Here is what is endlessly fascinating to me. All this outrage about Trump supposedly being Putin’s puppet when the reality is he is joined at the hip with the Saudis and Israel and ultimately it is all about hatred of Iran, which is on Russia’s side. But the Saudi Lobby has real power and to some degree in both parties, so we don’t hear outrage about them. Congressional leaders are busy trying to prevent a Congressional debate over cutoff of aid to the Saudi war in Yemen. This is as the Saudis seem bent on destabilizing Lebanon, accusing Iran of an act of war, and imposing an even more stringent blockade on Yemen which will cause even more deaths.
    This is what Trump is doing, right now, genuinely and unambiguously and openly supportive of one of the worst regimes on the planet as they commit war crimes and obviously desire to have us take on Iran and Hezbollah. But yeah, look over there. Putin.
    Bob, you should read Daniel Larison too. He is conservative in the style of Andrew Bacevich, opposed to all of our endless stupid wars overseas. He is constantly critical of Trump on foreign policy, but over Trump’s actual stupid despicable monstrous policies and not his alleged allegiance with Putin.

  107. Most everything revealed in the “Panama Papers” and the recent “Paradise Papers” was very likely legal.
    That one oligarch hired a million dollar lawyer and so is snow-white squeaky clean while the other oligarch, the one that won’t give us peasants enough crumbs, hired the hundred thousand dollar lawyer and got caught so is eveeeel and scum of the earth pretty much misses the point, the bigger story.
    I don’t know if it is because I am old crank or if it because you and Marty have more crumbs than I do, but I honestly hate them all.
    Obama, Clinton, Trump, Putin, the Sauds I just don’t give a flying fucking shit for your tribal rituals and tests anymore.
    Tore up my registration card last week. Voted my last vote.

  108. As I started reading Donald’s link, my urge was to write “America first!” But Larison beat me to it.

    The candidate who repeatedly emphasizes putting America first is a reliable booster of whatever these governments choose to do regardless of the harm it does to our security and reputation.

  109. First, it’s not particularly relevant what the left thinks of msm in this context. The causal effect of decades of msm being perceived by the right as a tool of the left is not effected by the left’s defense of their media. I recognize the sincerity with which left leaning folks may believe they are not. It just doesn’t matter.
    How is it not relevant?
    Your contention was:
    The primary source of this breach is the leftward drift and politicization of the institutions we used to count on. The reaction, way overdone, is not the cause.
    So whether or not any such a leftward drift in fact occurred is very much relevant.
    If it did not occur, than we would have to look for other first causes — right wing demagoguery and media scapegoating, Rupert Murdoch’s singular influence, etc. When we do, the needle tips rapidly back toward something like David Robert’s original point.
    Now, you’re obviously right that this fact alone won’t undo the damage that’s been inflicted — on themselves and everyone else — by the right’s asymmetrical retreat to hyperpartisan fantasyland. But it certainly doesn’t help to revise the history of how it happened either.
    Second, today and pretty recently both MSNBC and CNN have achieved the role of Fox news comparables. So yes, there are 2.
    Ha. I wish…

  113. Well, hsh, yes and no. Whether the drift occurred is relevant, whether people on the left believe it did is not. It did occur.
    The msm today is the mouthpiece of the left. There is no exception. Maybe the WSJ, if you think of them as msm. The Cristian Science Monitor maybe.

  114. Well, hsh, yes and no.
    I think you meant to address jack lecou’s comment. But I’ll play!
    The msm today is the mouthpiece of the left. There is no exception. Maybe the WSJ, if you think of them as msm. The Cristian Science Monitor maybe.
    Perhaps by some definition of “left.” A general rightward drift would tend to change that definition for many. (I seem much taller in a room full of short people.)
    I don’t really deny that there is some leftward (by today’s American standards) bias in much of the mainstream media. I also think that it isn’t anything remotely equivalent to the loony RW media that has no small influence on popular opinion in the US. They are not mirror images of one another.

  115. The msm today is the mouthpiece of the left.
    The NYT is published in NY. The Washington Post is published in DC. MSNBC’s main offices are in 30 Rock, if I’m not mistaken. CNBC is right across the river in Englewood NJ.
    Their point of view reflects, in very broad terms, the communities that they are part of.
    As it turns out, those communities include a lot of people. Something like two thirds of Americans live in urban areas.
    You’re not talking about “the left”, you’re talking about most people. You’re not talking about “mainstream media”, you’re talking about mainstream America.
    Maybe you’re the anomaly. Just saying.

  116. I don’t really deny that there is some leftward (by today’s American standards) bias in much of the mainstream media.
    much of that leftward bias is due to the fact that the right has recently lurched hard right both in ideology and in partisanship. what isn’t explicitly “conservative” is now liberal (updated daily).

  117. also… this idea that the msm is liberal is the foundation of rightwing media’s marketing strategy.
    1. insist everyone else is lying because they’re un-American™
    2. promise to be the only source of truth for Real Americans™

  118. what isn’t explicitly “conservative” is now liberal (updated daily).
    Being careful to note that “conservative” in this context means some combination of radical reactionary and fantasist. Actual conservatives have long since, however reluctantly, been forced to abandon the label as fatally compromised. Use the term descriptively for the views, perhaps, but not the label.

  119. Being careful to note that “conservative” in this context means some combination of radical reactionary and fantasist.
    yep
    quoted to emphasize that it’s a meaningless label, and not the traditional ideology.

  120. Leftward bias? Well, that depends on what you think of as the centre.
    If I published a party-politically neutral newspaper, meticulous about factual accuracy, and with commentary considered centrist by UK standards, I’m fairly sure Marty would think it very leftist. Because it would point out that the US healthcare model is hopelessly misguided, that torturing prisoners is stupid and wrong, that anthropogenic global warming is a problem, that guns are dangerous…

  122. The msm today is the mouthpiece of the left.
    No. Actually, they are in the thrall of finance capital and the forces of reactionary evil.
    I shall repeat this as often as I feel like.
    Therefore, I win.
    Next.

  123. Leftward bias? Well, that depends on what you think of as the centre.
    In America, we have liberals. People who think that government should be actively engaged in addressing social and economic problems, rather than just letting the free market or some other natural or un-natural process or dynamic make things happen via its invisible hand.
    What we do not have in any measurable quantity are leftists. People who believe that what is needed is a restructuring of the basic norms, processes, and institutions by which we operate as a society.
    Noam Chomsky is the American Left, for purposes of public life. Can anyone even think of another?
    Bernie Sanders, our nominal public “socialist”, would be a fairly mainstream figure in the mid 20th C. Right up until about Reagan.
    Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, either Clinton, would be center-right in that context.
    There is no “mouthpiece of the left wing” because there is no left wing. It exists, but in homeopathic amounts. If you want to read some real left-wing stuff, there are things I could point you at, but they would likely not pass mcmanus muster as true “left wing”.
    I actually agree that the Clintons are basically oligarchs. Not born to it, but they’ve joined the club. Obama, too.
    To a quite large degree, that doesn’t bother me. At least they want to make the world a somewhat less shitty place for the folks who aren’t in the club.
    I’d love to have some folks in positions of actual power who wanted to actually shake stuff up, rather than just make things nicer and less harsh, but I don’t expect to see that again in my lifetime.
    And no, Donald J Trump is not a guy who is going to “shake things up” in the sense that I’m talking about. He’ll shake stuff up, all right, but not in ways that are going to make life any better for folks who actually need it.
    In the US we have center, center-right, and reactionary.

  127. I want to express my agreement with russell’s 3:05. I seemed to have set off a bunch of comments about what is “left” or “leftward” with my earlier comment. My real point was this:
    Perhaps by some definition of “left.” A general rightward drift would tend to change that definition for many. (I seem much taller in a room full of short people.)
    By which I was trying to express a sort of political relativity that exists in the US. So also this: leftward (by today’s American standards).
    People don’t distinguish between left and liberal much here, since liberal is – for the overwhelming majority – as far left as we really go.
    This is a pretty damned right-wing country as very economically developed (nominal) democracies are concerned.

  129. I think there is some degree of bias in every news source on all parts of the spectrum. I half sympathize with Marty on this. That said, on some issues reality really does have a liberal bias. I’m thinking, for instance, of climate change. It’s just a fact that most scientists in the relevant fields agree that humans are changing the climate and conservatives have decided this can’t be true because it threatens their ideology. If the only solution for global warming involved something that would guarantee more wealth and power for rich Republican donors I don’t have the slightest doubt conservatives would be tribally loyal to the claim that global warming was a terrible danger that needed to be dealt with right freaking now. Fox News would be beating the drums for this solution every night. And maybe some lefties would be the skeptics.
    That’s not to say that liberals and lefties can’t be irrational on some issues too. We have our own cognitive bubbles, sometimes separate ones. I just think the right wing bubbles are bigger and encompass more issues.

  130. the right wing bubbles are bigger and encompass more issues.
    As far as I can tell, the right wing bubbles encompass more things – a universe of things – that are actually, demonstrably false.
    And that is a very large problem.

  131. If you want to read some real left-wing stuff, there are things I could point you at
    I don’t hang with the actual commies and anarchists, I guess, but the people I read know where to point.
    Jacobin has five articles today on the Bolsheviks.
    Baku Commune October 1917
    Baku was 1500 miles east of Leningrad. The opening of the archives has inspired scholarship on the revolution in the bookies.
    The first article by Rabinowitch is very good on Petrograd and 1917.
    I forget who was asked:”Do you really expect Revolution in America?”
    Answer:”No, of course not, never ever gonna happen. Unless the Randites take over, then two years.”
    Hasn’t been any real social redistribution save under or after catastrophe. I don’t desire catastrophe of a World War level, fer Gawd’s sake, but my Marxism makes me believe it is much more likely than liberals who think the system mostly works.
    Hell on Earth is a bad loan away. The Left prepares. Liberals usually end up on the stability side of the barricades.

  132. Should be “boonies” above. This scholarship on rural 1917 Russia has refuted ,most of the affection for the SR. They served capital, and were horrific to peasants.
    When catastrophe happens, the liberals and center think they can return to the fool ole days. Of Obama maybe, now under Gillibrand or whoever. And catastrophe is never their fault.
    The Left’s job in part is to show how Obama caused Trump and liberalism can’t/won’t ever stop fascism. As we are seeing.

  133. The Left’s job in part is to show how Obama caused Trump and liberalism can’t/won’t ever stop fascism. As we are seeing.
    no, we are actually not seeing that, because the US is not actually under a fascist government.

  134. I forget who was asked:”Do you really expect Revolution in America?”
    Answer:”No, of course not, never ever gonna happen. Unless the Randites take over, then two years.”
    I consider that the Randites *are* the revolution.

  135. cleek, 5:36:no, we are actually not seeing that, because the US is not actually under a fascist government.
    Yet. One bank failure, one big bomb away?
    Remember what happened and when in the last Republican administration? Think Trump doesn’t believe in the political power of a wartime President? I wanted Bush removed in November 2001 by any means necessary, because of the precedent and lessons.
    I give at least a 60% chance the fucking Sauds will push us into madness in the next year. Maybe the next month.

  137. It’s not the result in the Virginia governor’s race. (Although Gillespie winning would have been significant.) It’s the size of the wins for the Democrats in the House of Delegates races. You know, the place where redistricting decisions will get made after the next census.

  138. I myself think that the greatest threat to the future of the country is the Republican Party.
    I think it is institutionally insane – out of touch with reality. This opinion is based on any number of policies routinely favored by the party, Trump aside. Those include probably everything having to do with the environment – most notably but not only climate change, everything having to do with taxes and fiscal policy, and most, perhaps not quite all, things having to do with foreign policy.

  139. When catastrophe happens, the liberals and center think they can return to the fool ole days.
    Something to this….liberals tend to think things can change simply by replacing “bad” people with “good” people and downplaying institutional and social power relationships that caused the catastrophe.
    I give at least a 60% chance the fucking Sauds will push us into madness in the next year.
    Doesn’t strike me as likely unless they team up with Israel for a massive strike against Iran. So I’ll take those odds….where can I get my bet down?
    A civil war in Saudi land is more likely….there’s no civil war like internecine elite civil wars….and they have it coming.

  140. Yet. One bank failure, one big bomb away?
    i know you know what the word “fascism” means. and i know you’re normally a stickler for getting political labels correct.
    why now now?

  142. I myself think that the greatest threat to the future of the country is the Republican Party.
    100%.
    but, i’m sure it’s only because a liberal in 1972 was mean to the last honorable “conservative”, or whatevah. they had no choice but to become the party of Suck It, Eggheads!

  143. This opinion is based on any number of policies routinely favored by the party, Trump aside
    trump is an epiphenomenon. a symptom.
    but, i’m sure it’s only because a liberal in 1972 was mean to the last honorable “conservative”
    that was ’87.

  146. Bravo Virginia! Bravo New Jersey! I pray (or equivalent) that this is a portent for 2018….

  148. If the Virginia House of Delagates go the way they are looking (5 races are within 500 votes, 4 of those within a hundred, and at least one within 15) the Democrats will end up with a 1 vote majority. That will definitely be one to celebrate for the Democrats — especially given the gerrymandering that went into HoD district boundaries.

  150. I wonder how many Republicans are proud of the campaign Gillespie ran in VA.
    Not the results, the content of the campaign.

  151. Good day for Democrats!
    I have no idea what kind of campaign Gillespie ran, so I don’t know.
    But then I don’t know what kind of campaign the Dems ran either.
    I suspect I would not have liked either one.

  152. As a first approximation, most of the Trump true-believers. Considering how the primary went, probably just under half of Republican voters there.

  153. Andrew Bacevich is a self-described conservative.
    I stand corrected….like his stuff.
    Go Dems…even bad ones.

  155. Could someone here please provide an example of an “honorable conservative”?
    IMO Evan McMullin, who ran for the (R) POTUS nomination in 2016 as a (very) latecomer, seems like a good guy.
    I am hard pressed to think of a policy position of his that I can agree with. And, I’d be fine with him holding national office.
    I wonder how many Republicans are proud of the campaign Gillespie ran in VA.
    At some point the “Trump phenomenon” is going to come down to people deciding what kind of human beings they want to be. I put “Trump phenomenon” in quotes because IMO he is just the symptom.
    There is a lot of ugly crap in the American body politic, and Trump’s candidacy and now presidency is making it once again acceptable for that crap to walk around in the bright light of day.
    It’s great IMO that Gillespie lost because it means there’s a limit to how much mileage folks can get out of working the ugly side of the street. But the real problem is the ugly side of the street.
    At least if folks who go that way keep losing it will weed out the opportunists. We’ll still have the true believers to deal with. So be it.

  156. Two particularly important points from the results in the VA House of Delegates, which has flipped from 66R:34D to close to 50:50 (not clear because some races are *very* close):
    1. Gerrymandering works by corralling as many as possible of your opponents (in this case, Ds) into a few districts, and leaving you (Rs) a lot of districts where you win by moderate margins. When a “wave” election comes through, you can lose catastrophically, across the board.
    2. Virginia switched to paper ballots.

  157. Interesting, Bobby.
    But, since I live in California (which is pretty much a similar one-party state these days), not especially surprising. The California Democratic Party pretty much runs the gamut from ultra-far-left to center-right. Mostly because, as a party, the Republicans abandoned (forcefully rejected, actually) anything except the far-right. I think that the whole open primary thing will force a change. But so far, while individual Republican politicians who are moderate to center-right are emerging, the state party organizations hasn’t moved. Yet.

  159. Could someone here please provide an example of an “honorable conservative”?
    Can someone tell what it takes to be an ‘honorable conservative’ in the eyes of a progressive?
    Does anyone here recognize the profound arrogance that underlies a question like this?
    I liked and continue to like George H.W. Bush. I like George W, but think he was in over his head. I like Mitch Romney. I like Carly Fiorina. All of these were vilified in their time with the same words and same vehemence we now see reserved for Trump. Where are the honorable liberals who look back with regret on their over-the-top language? I know tons of people who are conservative and who, among other things, are a hell of lot more tolerant about dissent than many here. I also know plenty who are the mirror image of the daily exchange here, so y’all are hardly alone.
    There are a lot of people at NRO who despise Trump and say so regularly. Do they get any credit? Not here, not in this echo chamber.
    So, it’s me, just dropping in to say that maybe y’all have jumped the shark.

  160. Can someone tell what it takes to be an ‘honorable conservative’ in the eyes of a progressive?
    George H.W. Bush
    Willie Horton
    George W
    McCain’s “black” daughter
    Mitch Romney
    47%. Also, ‘Mitt’, not ‘Mitch’.
    Carly Fiorina
    I got no problem with Fiorina other than I don’t think she’d make a good POTUS.
    So, that’s where I’m coming from when I think of folks being ‘honorable’ or not.
    YMMV.

  161. At some point the “Trump phenomenon” is going to come down to people deciding what kind of human beings they want to be.
    Is it reasonably possible that it might also come down to who the Dems put up as a candidate?
    I will never vote for Trump. It’s unlikely, with the leftward drift on the Dem side I would ever vote nationally for a Dem. And, it isn’t as if the Dems have offered a great candidate.
    People can dismiss Donna Brazile and using cutouts to get information from the Russians–and lying about it–and using the anonymity of Canadian law to hide donor identities and all the rest, but HRC really wasn’t all that attractive of a candidate.
    As for left vs right, there is a case to be made for a strong national defense. There is a case to be made against regulating how college kids make out and who gets to use the men’s and women’s room. There is a middle ground between open borders and rounding everyone up and sending them home. Life isn’t binary. I don’t have to vote for or approve of Elizabeth Warren simply because the choice on the right is a clown like Trump.
    So, give the poor shark a rest. Jesus.

  163. Can someone tell what it takes to be an ‘honorable conservative’ in the eyes of a progressive?
    being a partisan is part of the job. being a Republican is expected. i know i’ll hate most of the policy stiff. but if i can trust that the big decisions are being made for the betterment of the country (even if i think they decisions are wrong), and not being made for the betterment of the GOP.
    so, it’s a Republican who doesn’t follow the Gingrich-style hyper-partisan scorched-earth Party Uber Alles model. i know i won’t agree with the policies, but at least i can assume they’re coming from a place of honest ideology, and not of pure cynical power-grabbing (though there will always be some of that – that’s politics).
    GHWB, Ford, Romney, George Pataki, McCain (though he’s a complicated guy). i’d even say GWB could have been in that group but so many of his important decisions were so very very terrible that i just can’t.
    There are a lot of people at NRO who despise Trump and say so regularly. Do they get any credit?
    the NRO was also full of Iraq war cheerleaders and guys who swooned over Sarah Palin. they got a lot of credit on the left last year for being never-Trump. but nobody on the left forgot their history, either.

  165. I tend to think that “honorable” isn’t binary either. For example, I don’t consider Bill Clinton to be an honorable human being. But as a politician he gets better marks. Put it another way, I think he would screw lots of people literally, but not people in general figuratively.

  166. but HRC really wasn’t all that attractive of a candidate.
    attractive enough to beat the pants off Trump – when you count the votes of actual people.
    one of these days, “conservatives” are going to get burned by the EC. and it’s going to be fncking glorious.

  167. but if i can trust that the big decisions are being made for the betterment of the country (even if i think they decisions are wrong), and not being made for the betterment of the GOP.
    This is fair. I will point out that HRC was all good with the war. Do you think this was self interest on her part or that she thought–at the time–that it was the right call under difficult circumstances? If the latter, will you concede that others might have felt the same at the time?

  168. attractive enough to beat the pants off Trump – when you count the votes of actual people.
    Not my point. Leaving aside that winning the vote in CA and NY as a Dem is shooting fish in a barrel with a shotgun, I was using HRC’s general lack of appeal as one reason why there will be Trump voters in the future even if they think Trump is an all world fuckhead–because they see the Dem alternative as even worse. Many on the DEM side find that inconceivable. I have a lot of friends who find it inconceivable that I didn’t vote for Trump because HRC was so awful. There are a few of us who simply can’t stomach either side’s offering and others who will hold their noses and vote for people like Trump.
    one of these days, “conservatives” are going to get burned by the EC. and it’s going to be fncking glorious.
    Mostly likely that is so.

  169. All of these were vilified in their time with the same words and same vehemence we now see reserved for Trump.
    I don’t think this is accurate, with the possible exception of George W. However, I agree that Dubya is an amiable idiot, i.e. not an evil man per se, although many of his decisions were appalling and led to terrible consequences. I will agree that he probably was too ignorant to foresee this, and was being manipulated by Cheney et al (and I think Cheney was corrupt, and acting out of self- and party- interest, if not contrary to what he saw as the country’s interest), which he saw too late to do anything about. However, to address your point, I think Trump is sui generis, and is being abused as such, and the only politician that attracted similar levels of insult and opprobrium was Palin, for excellent reason.
    As for HRC, I believe that she has been criticised here more than I have seen in many other fora, and not just by you and Marty and Donald, but (to the fury of sapient) by many of us liberals.

  170. Is it reasonably possible that it might also come down to who the Dems put up as a candidate?
    In my opinion, no.
    I’m not talking about whether somebody is conservative, or has an (R) after their name.
    I’m talking about whether people find arguments like whether somebody has a black child to be politically relevant and persuasive.
    Lather rinse and repeat for arguments about beaners, homos, and sand monkeys.
    Or, on the economic front, arguments about “makers and takers” and the 47% of Americans who are just moochers living offa Uncle Sugar.
    That stuff finds a ready and receptive audience. I find the political strategy of pandering to that audience to be less than honorable.
    YMMV
    So, is HRC, or her husband, honorable?
    My opinion about the Clintons more or less echoes wj’s at 11:59.
    Which, if you have ever read anything I’ve ever posted here about the Clintons, would come as no surprise to you.
    Nice tu quoque action, though.

  171. I will point out that HRC was all good with the war. Do you think this was self interest on her part or that she thought–at the time–that it was the right call under difficult circumstances?
    the Iraq war?
    i have always been lukewarm on HRC’s hawkishness. and, i’m sure she was probably angling for some “tough on terrorism” cred with her war vote – it was the style at the time, like tying an onion to your belt. and since she was a Senator from NY, she probably had pressures that other Senators didn’t.
    but i didn’t like it, and it’s part of why i liked Obama in their primary.
    it wasn’t enough to be disqualifying in 2016.
    I was using HRC’s general lack of appeal
    but by what measurement? the 50+ statewide polls that were conducted last Nov says she was more popular than Trump. several million more actual Americans got off the couch to pull the lever for Clinton than for Trump. the people who lives in the states where the most people live are discounted by the EC, but that’s doesn’t mean they should be discounted for any other reason.

  172. Can someone tell what it takes to be an ‘honorable conservative’ in the eyes of a progressive?
    Making honest arguments for your positions, and dealing with reality, is a good place to start.
    I don’t think the GOP in general does that. They refuse to even consider the possibility that climate change is a problem, and are stripping scientists out of key positions in government.
    I think the approach to health care is absurd.
    The promises being made for the tax proposals are anywhere between unjustified and outright lies. Look at the crap they have been spewing for decades about the estate tax devastating small businesses and farms. It’s just plainly a lie, yet they repeat it constantly. Or how tax cuts pay for themselves. No. It’s a lie.
    Guns. Sensitive issue. OK. Here is what I think. The more guns there are around the more gun violence there will be. Do you disagree. For years we have been told that “so-called assault weapons” are just gussied-up single shot rifles and that it is ignorant to think otherwise. Not true, it turns out, especially with “bump stocks” and whatnot.
    Deficits. Terrible. Awful. Bankrupting. Until they want to hand out tax cuts to their buddies. The budget in general. Please stop telling me what a genius Ryan is. You want dishonorable? That’s him, and his pals. All he wants, has ever wanted, is tax cuts for wealthy people paid for by cuts in SS and Medicare.
    Honorable? Lots of these guys make a big deal about their Christian beliefs. Great. I’m all for it, despite not being a Christian myself. Tell me, McK, would Jesus favor cutting Medicaid? What do the gospels say about the proper way to treat strangers?
    I can go on.

  173. This:
    but if i can trust that the big decisions are being made for the betterment of the country (even if i think they decisions are wrong), and not being made for the betterment of the GOP.
    And this:
    i’m sure she was probably angling for some “tough on terrorism” cred with her war vote
    HRC votes for war for political credibility, i.e. in her own personal interest, not for the greater good of the country. So, are there any honorable liberals?

  174. OK.
    GHWB was honorable, I think. GWB had potential. I admired his stand against anti-Muslim bigotry and IIRC he was a decent human on immigration.
    McCain is complex, but on the whole an honorable man. His choice of Palin was terrible, and he has often been too eager to go along, but nobody is perfect.
    John Kasich.
    Carly Fiorina. I have not much to go on with respect to honor, but I don’t understand why anyone thinks he is a competent individual. She seriously damaged an iconic American company, and walked away with $20 million or so. Just maybe she might have expressed a regret or two.
    NRO? Forget it. Yeah, some were #neverTrumpers, but Jonah Goldberg, who claimed to be one, nonetheless admitted that if it were solely up to him to choose he would have chosen Trump in preference to Clinton. Is that your idea of honorable? How about the articles claiming Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Obama’s autobiography?
    One more thing. I would like some of those on the right who dislike Trump to, just once, admit that maybe they had just a bit to do with his rise, by supporting Tea Party, and the kind of Gingrich politics cleek mentions.

  175. McKinneyTexas is an honorable conservative.
    I’d like to think my (our) vilification and vehemence regarding rump are supercharged over and above the same reserved for the other names, but maybe I need to work harder at it.
    rump does make the other names look more honorable in retrospect, including Clinton, in my profoundly arrogant opinion.
    As far as NRO goes, they have been an echo chamber against all things moderately liberal, whatever that is, since 1954, ‘cept maybe for Scoop Jackson.
    They sense rump is damaging their conservative brand. So did their decades-long support for continued racial segregation.
    “but HRC really wasn’t all that attractive of a candidate.”
    Agreed. For one thing, she suffers from something like Richard Nixon’s 5:00pm shadow as far as presentation goes, but conservatives made us live with the disaster of him. But Clinton wasn’t fatally ill during the campaign either, in an example of shark jumping right here last Fall by the honorable opposition.
    “And, it isn’t as if the Dems have offered a great candidate.”
    Agreed. The Dem candidates that won Governorships in Virginia and New Jersey don’t seem so great (barely inspirational) to me either, but they ran against grievously awful and dishonorable conservative campaigns.
    “There is a middle ground between open borders and rounding everyone up and sending them home.”
    Agreed. But that middle ground, with necessary compromises both sides didn’t like, was torpedoed by the very conservatives who established that middle ground in favor of stimulating the worst nationalist and white supremacist instincts of the republican base and to deny Barack Obama any semblance of a governing win.
    Voila rump.
    “Life isn’t binary”
    Agreed. Then tell your conservative candidates to stop signing pledges declaring life and governing are absolutely binary.
    “I don’t have to vote for or approve of Elizabeth Warren simply because the choice on the right is a clown like Trump.”
    I expect not. She could be wrong about everything but she’s seems to be so honorably.
    So now we have a completely dishonorable clown, who, as a sideline, is completely wrong about everything as President, though from the looks of it, the republican party is holding in reserve even worse for future campaigns.
    “I have a lot of friends who find it inconceivable that I didn’t vote for Trump because HRC was so awful.”
    Me too.
    What did rump see in the conservative movement that he chose you guys to lead? It couldn’t have been honor, unless it’s the crime family type of honor.
    But I’m trying to think of the spotless Jesus Christ on the Democratic side that this conservative movement, today, would not have crucified just as they did the imperfect Clinton and Obama.

  176. HRC votes for war for political credibility, i.e. in her own personal interest, not for the greater good of the country.
    this is what i wrote:

    i’m sure she was probably angling for some “tough on terrorism” cred with her war vote

    emphasis added.
    i find it unremarkable that a Senator from NY after 9/11 would want to look tough on terrorism. i disagree that that particular vote was a good way to do it. but most of the country agreed with her, at the time.
    she is also well-known to be more hawkish than most Dems. i assume that comes from an honest place, since it is consistent, even if i think it’s misguided.
    there’s no contradiction in the two things you quoted. i never said one bad decision is disqualifying. i never said have a position that i disagree with is disqualifying. i never said that making political calculations is disqualifying. i have never said that i think Clinton puts party ahead of country.
    i sometimes disagree with her.
    i see a vast difference between HRC and Trump. HRC takes public service seriously and she would make a serious President who would do some things i would disagree with. Trump is an unserious person, he is a fraud in every possible way. if he does anything i agree with, i am confident that it will have been entirely by accident.

  177. Can someone tell what it takes to be an ‘honorable conservative’ in the eyes of a progressive?
    shark jumpers anonymous salutes you!
    See replies above…..from byomtov, russell, cleek, and yes, Countme.
    To me, the epitome of GOP lying was George Bush in 2000 and his BS about Social Security. It was a pack of lies. It has been repeatedly shown to be a pack of lies. Many conservatives still mouth this line of BS.
    On climate change: One can argue that effectively dealing with climate change is “not worth it”. I would, however, question your judgement. But disparaging the actual science is just lying.

  179. If I were going to summarize I would say this.
    My opinion is that Republican Party policies on the whole are foolish, and not based on sound arguments. The arguments made are very often simply dishonest, and some are driven by bigotry.
    In addition, there is a lot of just plain sleaziness, as we saw in the Gillespie campaign, birtherism, and so on. I understand that Rush Limbaugh has just attributed mass shootings to the shooters having been in day care as children.
    I recognize that there are plenty of people who hod conservative views who are not like this. But I find it difficult to have much respect for those who associate themselves with it.
    I do make exceptions. I have friends who are ardent right-wingers, believe it or not. But they have overcome a presumption.

  181. McTex,
    Yes, there is a great deal of lying going on in politics…hey, who was it said it wasn’t beanbag?
    One thing that really sticks in my craw is nationwide aggressive GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression.
    One could pull the bean bag aphorism out, but OK. Gloves off. To me–turning a blind eye to this is, simply put, dishonorable.
    Regards,
    sharkjumper

  182. In all fairness, McKinney, I have now remembered accusing Dubya of personal and family corruption (Uncle Bandar etc). I guess this may have been true, or not, I can’t remember the eventual conclusion. But George W himself: clearly (to me at least) not as appalling as Trump, as evidenced by his reaction to the current situation. So: honour – a somewhat relative matter.

  183. Tweet of the day:

    In 2014, Gillespie won Loudoun County (DC exurbs) by 456 votes.
    He lost it today by 23,432 votes.
    — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) November 8, 2017

    You can argue about how much of that was straight Trump effect, and how much was Gillespie reinventing himself as a Trump clone. But it’s pretty dramatic either way.

  184. “One thing that really sticks in my craw is nationwide aggressive GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression.”
    Well, if the Dems were in a position to do the gerrymandering you would, I suspect, be less irritated by it.
    Voter suppression, well that’s making stuff up. Plenty of Dems got to the polls yesterday, somehow when Dems win there is not much talk of voter suppression.

  185. There is a lot of lying. But the GOP has institutionalized it. It’s not individuals, it’s the whole damn party advancing its policies with systematic, repeated, demonstrated lies.
    Sorry, McK, but that is the case. And it’s a part of what makes me so angry at those who go along, Trumpers or not.

  187. “Multiple court cases suggest otherwise.”
    No, they decided it could create a greater hardship on different groups. They didn’t decide it did or would suppress the vote.
    BTW, by that standard every government office in the country suffers from the same issue.
    Because life is harder for some people. Getting a photo id being among the most trivial problems.

  188. /me proposes consolidating polling locations toward dense urban areas. This would be a purely practical measure to make administering elections and collecting votes faster and cheaper.
    Any negative effect on the turnout of (predominately conservative) suburban and rural voters would of course be entirely coincidental. Sure, it might be a hardship to drive into the city, but making things selectively more difficult for some groups can never EVER be considered suppression…

  189. Voter suppression, well that’s making stuff up.
    Not only do court cases suggest otherwise, so do Republicans in unguarded moments.
    And talk about making stuff up. The idea that here is somehow large-scale voter fraud going on that needs to be stopped is one of the institutional lies I mentioned above.
    It’s not true, there’s no evidence for it, even Republicans who look for it can’t find it, yet it is consistently cited as an excuse.

  191. George W himself: clearly (to me at least) not as appalling as Trump
    LOL
    Voter suppression, well that’s making stuff up.
    Not even worth discussing.
    HRC votes for war for political credibility, i.e. in her own personal interest, not for the greater good of the country. So, are there any honorable liberals?
    If nothing else, Hillary Clinton has a secure position for life as conservative bugbear.
    What prompted this bullcrap was a comment about Gillespie’s campaign. Which consisted of pandering to bigotry. Because in modern day America pandering to bigotry will, straight up, get you a reasonable slice of the (R) vote.
    That ain’t my circus, and it ain’t my monkeys. It’s yours.
    Clean it the hell up, and quit giving the rest of us crap about it. If you identify as a conservative in the US, it’s *your* problem.
    A lot of *your people* are bigots. If a lot of your friends voted for Trump and give you crap because you didn’t, maybe you need better friends.
    Yeah, I know, you didn’t vote for Trump. Big f’ing deal, nobody with the sense that god gave a turnip voted for Trump.
    There is a great big crapload of ugly BS parading around under the colors of (R) conservativism. That is *your* problem to deal with. It’s got bugger all to do with either Clinton.

  192. HRC votes for war for political credibility, i.e. in her own personal interest, not for the greater good of the country. So, are there any honorable liberals?
    Hillary Clinton voted for the war.
    W and his handler Cheney and the whole crew that went along with them pimped bullshit intelligence to get that war. They traded on the nation’s grief and fear after 9/11 to get that war. Some of them made shitloads of money off of that war.
    Advantage Clinton.
    Next question.

  193. russell, does your LOL mean you think Dubya is as appalling as Trump? Before Trump, I bowed to no-one in my contempt for W, and the terrible damage he inflicted on the middle east, America and the world, but in retrospect he looks, at least to me, as someone in a lesser league. I do not extend this judgement to Cheney.

  194. russell, does your LOL mean you think Dubya is as appalling as Trump?
    No, it was just me laughing at where the bar is set these days.
    Not by you, or just you. The whole rehabilitation of W is the new black.
    I’m sure George W Bush is a nice enough guy in settings where there’s nothing in it for him to be other than that. Which is most settings these days. I’m sure I would enjoy meeting him and talking about painting or baseball or something.
    And, he’s also the guy who beat John McCain in SC by spreading rumors that he had a black child. Which is pretty shitty, in about ten different directions all at once.
    Honorable is as honorable does.

  195. LGM take on Virginia gerrymander.
    No big deal in Marty world. Dems held big majorities in the House most of the time from 1932 to 1996. They never stooped this low.
    Now, before the abortion thread starts, I’d only like to comment on the voter turnout in that Dem bastion King County in WA State:
    YOU SUCK
    22% – are you kidding me?
    Rural Garfield County – turnout for an OFF YEAR election – 75%. Props to them for their civic participation.

  196. Well, I do basically agree, and don’t really have any desire to rehabilitate him. Anyway, it reminds me of Dr Johnson “Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a flea and a louse.”

  197. “There is a great big crapload of ugly BS parading around under the colors of (R) conservativism”
    We used to be able to discuss this, but now any conservative policy seems to fall in this category. So we won’t.
    So a Dem wins, they cater to the left, or even the left center. Independents grow tired and vote for a GOPer. GOP introduces conservative plan, nobody likes the reality. Back goes the pendulum. Ever moving the center a little right.
    Rinse and repeat.
    No need to discuss.

  199. We used to be able to discuss this
    Nope. I recall many a discussion back in the day (esp. wrt Viet Nam) that would end with the stemwinder, “You’re just a f*cking communist”.
    End of discussion.
    If you had argued with a Communist back in 1938, they would most likely have called you a fascist.
    What is different today is the ideological fences delineating “us” vs. “them” are enclosing much larger groups (we are sorting ourselves out) in much higher fences (more consistent and encompassing purity tests) than we are used to seeing…..or admitting to (cough, cough).
    What we have is about 35-40% of the country that sees itself as consistently “liberal” with a “liberal” set of positions that have been well honed over the last 25 years. Similarly, we have about 35-40% who are “conservatives” in the same regard. The rest either don’t know or don’t care enough to care.
    When one side is clearly dominant, this discussion can be muted, and the screaming is on the sidelines because we have a “consensus”.
    That’s certainly not the case these days.

  200. Marty,
    We used to be able to discuss this, but now any conservative policy seems to fall in this category. So we won’t.
    Yeah, they do. Is this the fault of conservatives or liberals?
    Do you think that the various arguments for conservative policies make sense? Which ones? I’m happy to discuss, but I tend to want facts and evidence, not assertions.
    You want to tell me the estate tax ravages family farms and businesses? OK. Let’s talk.
    Where? How many? What about the installment system under Section 6166 of the Internal revenue Code?
    Or are you just content to swallow Paul Ryan’s BS?

  201. Well, if the Dems were in a position to do the gerrymandering you would, I suspect, be less irritated by it.
    Yes, you have to tell lies because if the dems were in power, they would tell bigger ones. How you explain that to your kid?

  202. Never mind He, Trump. Consider that Republicans elected a charlatan like Paul Ryan to be Speaker of the House.
    I don’t know whether Marty or McKinney consider Ryan “honorable”. I do know that I have heard him (for years) rail against the fact that “small businesses pay tax at personal rates”, and on that account concluded (years ago) that Paul Ryan is either the dumbest man ever embraced as a “policy wonk” by a Broderist media, or the most dishonorable swindler ever to try to starve a granny.
    Consider also that Republicans (including IIRC Marty and McKinney) had no problem with Mitch McConnell stealing a SCOTUS seat — first by refusing a vote, and then by changing the rules for the vote. Winning by persuading voters (even with Russian propaganda) is in some sense “honorable”; winning by rigging the rules for voting (at the polls or in the legislature) is NOT.
    “Honorable” conservatives would argue (if they actually believe it) that “trickle-down” economics and “supply-side” tax policy will benefit the not-rich because they hugely benefit the very rich. In that sense, Ronald Reagan was “honorable”. Dishonorable conservatives pretend that those things do NOT in fact directly benefit the very rich. He, Trump’s ridiculous claim that his accountants told Him his feed-the-rich tax proposals would hurt Him financially is not worth discussing among sane people. But even that less-disgusting-in-retrospect beneficiary of low expectations, Dubya Bush, touted his feed-the-rich tax plan as not-a-feed-the-rich ploy. To be fair, that may have been because Dubya was as stoopid as Paul Ryan pretends(?) to be.
    Hillary Clinton? Yes, she supported the Iraq invasion. That’s why I backed Obama in 2008. Leave aside Dubya’s own claims in 2002 that the Iraq AUMF was intended to prevent a war and not require one. At least Hillary never denied that she supported Dick and Dubya’s Excellent Adventure. Which I suppose made her “worse” than He, Trump — who DID.
    Al Franken once wrote a book called “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: a Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” Liars who tell lies are, to stretch a point, “honorable” in a Sopranos sort of way. But we need a sequel at this point: “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: a Fair and Balanced Look at the Honorable People Who Believe Them”.
    –TP

  204. I think Ryan is honorable, I haven’t seen anything that makes me believe he is not acting out of a desire to create a positive outcome for the country.

  205. We used to be able to discuss this, but now any conservative policy seems to fall in this category. So we won’t.
    my comment was in reference to ed gillespie’s campaign. and, more broadly, the tone and content of trump’s, and those which have used his as a model. all of which are the spiritual children of atwater and his “nigger nigger” approach to winning hearts and minds.
    there is, in fact, a significant slice of the american public who find that approach, and similar approaches, appealing and persuasive. these days, and for the last generation or two, those folks find not just a home, but a welcome, in the (R) party.
    wanna talk about immigration policy? fine. leading off with “they’re sending their rapists” is not a conversation about immigration policy.
    lather rinse and repeat for whatever topic you care to name.
    get the freaking haters out of your party. or at least quit laying out the red carpet for them.
    as far as paul ryan, i look at him and i see a guy who was able to go to school because of SS survivor benefits, but who wants to make stuff like that go away for other people.
    that speaks, to me, of a profound lack of gratitude and self-awareness, and an obsession with a toxic social and political ideology that blinds him to the ground reality of other people’s lives.
    that is my take on paul ryan.

  206. “that speaks, to me, of a profound lack of gratitude and self-awareness, and an obsession with a toxic social and political ideology that blinds him to the ground reality of other people’s lives.”
    Same thing, different way. Toxic ideology is no more a conversation lead in than “they’re sending their rapusts”. Only more general and insulting.
    So, what I said.

  207. “toxic ideology” refers to his ayn rand thing.
    if you want to get into how and whether randianism is or isn’t either toxic or an ideology, fine.
    if you think it’s insulting for me to characterize it as such, maybe we have nothing to discuss.
    the political climate is poisonous. it’s not because of my opinion of objectivism.

  208. look, to head off some extended debate about rand, i’ll break it down in two lines.
    rand’s thing is toxic because it valorizes selfishness.
    it’s an ideology because it attempts to build an extended philosophical justification for valorizing selfishness.
    so, i call it a toxic ideology.
    paul is all in with rand, and i think less of him for it.
    if you see that as the same as claiming that mexico is “sending us their rapists”, then we really and truly have nothing further to discuss. nice knowing you, over and out.
    these aren’t abstractions we’re discussing, this stuff affects people’s lives.

  209. no, it has to be your fault, russell. the party of personal responsibility can’t be held responsible for the things other people make them do.

  210. Some Republicans who are honorable—
    https://theintercept.com/2017/11/07/watch-members-of-congress-attempt-to-explain-why-they-wont-vote-on-war-in-yemen/
    Yes, Yemen. The point is that there is no self serving political reason for a Republican to oppose Trump in this. Both the McCain wing and the Trump wing of the Republican Party support the Saudis and bombing anyone they see as part of the Iranian axis.
    I would no doubt find most of their other stances objectionable and would not vote for them, but these people exist.

  211. Toxic ideology is no more a conversation lead in than “they’re sending their rapusts”. Only more general and insulting.
    Perhaps we can start by agreeing that some ideologies are toxic. Everybody OK with that? (If not, then we probably do have in insurmountable barrier to discussion.)
    Which moves us on to Ayn Rand and the ideology she glorified. (And which Paul Ryan says inspires him.) If someone finds that inspiring, rather than toxic, it would be interesting to know why. Or maybe I should ask where, on the continuum from what we have today to it, you think we should end up.
    Personally, I find that it makes social life impossible. It only works if we are all willing to live as hermits, having interaction only when absolutely necessary, and with both sides heavily armed and willing to refrain from shooting (to get everything at no cost) only if the risk of getting shot back looks too great. If that’s not toxic, perhaps we need to stop and have a discussion of what would be toxic.

  212. Not for nothin’ (as some like to say), but ideologies are not people. Can you insult non-people?
    (This is one of the weirder harrumphs I’ve seen in a while.)

  213. “You are prepared to give your lives?”
    “Yes.”
    “You are prepared to commit murder?”
    “Yes.”
    “To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of innocent people?”
    “Yes.”
    “To betray your country to foreign powers?”
    “Yes.”
    “You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases – to do anything which is likely to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?”
    “Yes.”
    “If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to throw sulphuric acid in a child’s face – are you prepared to do that?”
    “Yes.”
    What does it matter whether their motives are honourable?

  215. I think Ryan is honorable, I haven’t seen anything that makes me believe he is not acting out of a desire to create a positive outcome for the country.
    I don’t.
    Your standard, even if he meets it, is not enough.
    There are at least two flaws:
    1. His judgment as to what constitutes a “positive outcome.” That’s usually debatable, of course, but some judgments are so outrageous as to be dishonorable. Reducing Medicare and SS to hand tax cuts to the wealthiest peoplel and families in the country – to advocate for plans that would establish a hereditary tax-free aristocracy – these are not defensible goals.
    2. His arguments in favor of his policies are dishonest. He lies. He uses magic asterisks to claim his plans balance the budget when they don’t. An honorable person makes honest arguments, accepts and defends the tradeoffs involved in his proposals, and tries to show, legitimately, why they are worthwhile. Ryan does none of that.
    Oh. And he’s a worm, too. Remember the campaign? He didn’t have the spine to support Trump explicitly, but kept saying things like “I support our nominee.” Now he looks like a grinning “tuches-lekker” every time he’s near Trump.
    Honorable? No.

  216. Yet more deworming required. Many Indiana republicans couldn’t wait to see him take his murderous calculated act national just to be away from that pious vacancy on his face that presages a good fucking for whomever he’s dealing with. If he was on fire, I’d direct him to the nearest gasoline pump.
    Even rump has his number. Dial 666 koch.
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence
    The only funny item in the article:
    “Pence, who has dutifully stood by the President, mustering a devotional gaze rarely seen since the days of Nancy Reagan, serves as a daily reminder that the Constitution offers an alternative to Trump.”
    In that case, the Constitution can bite me.
    DisPense with it.

  219. “GARY COHN: The most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.”
    Parson Roy Moore is excited, I bet:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_moore-art-1pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.0c8251ca2f6f
    via Balloon Juice
    Mike Pence’s wife should travel with Moore wherever he goes.

  221. Rereading my post, which I typed in a hurry, I should clarify. To my own surprise last year I found out there are some Republicans who have consistently opposed the American support for the Saudi war in Yemen. I think they must be doing this out of principle, because most of their party either supports Trump and wants to blow up Iran and its allies, or supports McCain and wants to blow up Iran and its allies. And I don’t get the impression there is a major grass roots movement among Republican voters (or too many Democrats) to worry much about the people we help blow up. To the extent that politicians in either party started this anti-Yemen war movement they almost certainly did it out of principle.

  222. Excellent New Yorker piece on Pence, Count. I always thought he’d be a very dangerous President, because more competent than Trump and filled with mad, dangerous ideology (for an example, see extract below), but I had no idea quite what a spineless weasel he was.

    At the White House, Pence has been hosting a Bible-study group for Cabinet officers, led by an evangelical pastor named Ralph Drollinger. In 2004, Drollinger, whose organization, Capitol Ministries, specializes in proselytizing to elected officials, stirred protests from female legislators in California, where he was then preaching, after he wrote, “Women with children at home, who either serve in public office, or are employed on the outside, pursue a path that contradicts God’s revealed design for them. It is a sin.” Drollinger describes Catholicism as “a false religion,” calls homosexuality “a sin,” and believes that a wife must “submit” to her husband. Several Trump Cabinet officials have reportedly attended the Bible-study group, including DeVos, Pompeo, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, Drollinger said that Pence “has uncompromising Biblical tenacity” and “brings real value to the head of the nation.”

  223. Parson Roy Moore is excited
    of course he is. he’s gonna be a Senator!
    and the local bakery will bake him the best cake for his party.
    because perving on young girls is fine with the GOP.

  224. of course he is. he’s gonna be a Senator!
    At this early point, the consensus on the usual sites seems to be…probably not.
    a) Alabama law says too late to take Moore’s name off ballot
    b) December election very low turnout, even lower cause dispirited and depressed repubs. Don’t know how much, but some enthusiasm on the Dem side is becoming evident nationwide
    c) Opponent Jones is actually a pretty good candidate by Alabama standards. Margin, with few polls, was only 6% before rapey news.
    Jones is like 60-75% chance of winning

  225. because perving on young girls is fine with the GOP.
    Course, seeing what is seen in my 4:59, Repubs want Moore out of there ASAP, so they can push a write-in, or find a way to break Alabama law. Lots of GOP Senators calling for Moore to drop out.

  226. http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/11/if-i-were-a-carpenter
    “Judge Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Alabama’s upcoming special Senate election, denies allegations that he romantically pursued teenagers as young as 14 when he was in his 30s. Even if the allegations are true, one statewide elected official in Alabama said it’s “much ado about nothing.”
    “There is nothing to see here,” Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”
    After interviews with more than 30 people, the Washington Post reported Thursday that Moore engaged in sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32 years old and a powerful attorney in a small Alabama town. . .
    Ziegler seemed unconcerned about that allegation and told the Washington Examiner that any political concern would be mitigated by three things. Moore never had “sexual intercourse” with the girl. Their relationship “happened almost 40 years ago.” And finally, “Roy Moore fell in love with one of the younger women.”
    Moore began dating his wife Kayla around this time, according to Ziegler. “He dated her. He married her, and they’ve been married about 35 years. They’re blessed with a wonderful marriage and his wife Kayla is 14 years younger than Moore.”
    Asked whether or not the report would upend Moore’s campaign, Ziegler predicted that Alabama voters would be angrier at the Washington Post for “desperately trying to get something negative” than Moore for his dalliances with teenage girls decades ago.
    “He’s clean as a hound’s tooth,” Ziegler claimed, before relying on Scripture to defend Moore.
    “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”
    Jesus Christ.”
    Highlight:
    “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”
    What starts off as a Henny Youngman joke (“Take my wife ….. “) would have been better if it had ended with a Groucho/Margaret Dumont routine (“I see you standing in front of a hot stove. But I can’t see the stove”).
    Instead, the State Auditor throws some cold water (America, that barking mad horn dog, needs some cold water thrown on it) on the immaculate conception by casting doubt on whether or not it was the third party in the threesome, God, who consummated with the teenager (was she underage?) Mary, or the adult carpenter, Joseph, who did the husbandry deed.
    Are these people changing the story now?
    Furthermore, if all of this had happened in the non-existent basement of a Washington D.C. pizza joint, GOP propagandists would have sent a guy over there to shoot the place up, after, natch, some due diligence investigations of his own.
    State Auditor Ziegler then excused himself to audit Kelly Ann Conway’s husband’s sock drawer full of fake Bill Clinton dick pics.
    “Kelly Ann, honey, I swear all of those pictures are of Bill Clinton’s penis.”

  227. At this early point, the consensus on the usual sites seems to be…probably not.
    websites don’t vote in Alabama. people who voted for Trump do.

  229. Even with this, a Moore loss seems unlikely. But if it happens, what a huge plus for the Democrats. Not to mention a black eye for Bannon — couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

  232. “because perving on young girls is fine with the GOP.”
    bumpersticker from 2006 is still in style:
    GOP: COME FOR THE CORRUPTION,
    STAY FOR THE PEDOPHILIA!

  234. evil, toxic. not the same thing.
    if rand’s your kind of gal, live it up, but don’t put words in my mouth.

  235. “GOP: COME FOR THE CORRUPTION,
    STAY FOR THE PEDOPHILIA!”
    Based on the news lately this seems to be trite and a bit tone deaf.

  236. Gotta agree with Marty. Better to say something like:
    MOORE FOR SENATE: COME FOR THE CORRUPTION,
    STAY FOR THE PEDOPHILIA!
    Over generalization is a great way to take the force out of a good argument.

  237. wj,
    That was a bumper sticker from 2006, so the data that lends itself to “over geneneralization” seems to span decades.
    Have you not noticed that god-botherers who can’t keep it in their pants have seemed drawn to the GOP for a long time now?
    (Before Marty offers up Slick Willie or Anthony Wiener, please note the difference between an ordinary lecher and a Bible-thumping lecher.)
    I’m not ignoring your point, BTW. I agree completely that a bad argument, when good arguments are available, is a poor way to serve any cause. So I don’t think all Republicans are either lechers or Bible-thumpers. But I do reserve the right to notice that the combination seems to fire up the Republican “base”.
    Keep in mind how we got to Roy Moore. Governor Bentley, Republican, was driven from office by a nookie scandal. He was saved from impeachment by Republican AG Luther Strange, who Bentley turned around and appointed to fill the seat vacated by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who was picked by that pussy-grabbing citer of Two Corinthians He, Trump to bring more piety to the Justice Department. Trump’s white christianist “strategist” Steve Bannon bucked his former boss to back the gun-brandishing Ten Commandments fetishist Roy Moore in the primary against the corruptly-appointed Strange. Moore won, and He, Trump lost not more than a millisecond to jump on the Moore bandwagon. Is it possible that Alabama Republicans, already enamored of Moore’s god-bothering, will rally to his side now that they know he’s a lech too? I’d like to think better than that of even Alabama Republicans. But if they do, I will find it hard not to “generalize” just a bit.
    –TP

  238. Tony, I too have noticed the massive levels of hypocrisy in the theocratic wing of the GOP. There are lots of folks who are sincerely religious, and who live their faith, but the number and prominence of the “do as I say, not as I (secretly) do” approach is notable.
    As, to be fair, is the number of those on the left who take the same approach to women. Bill Clinton being far from the only example.
    That said, the situation in Alabama seems exceptional still. Not uniquely bad, unfortunately, but worse than the norm. But perhaps I dislike some forms of immorality more than others.

  239. I will believe Trump’s not a liar when he admits that his years of accusations about Obama’s birthplace were totally false.
    I don’t know whether that’s a “big lie” or a “little lie”..
    All I know is that it’s an obviously debunked lie.
    For which Trump has never apologized or set the record straight. Nor have all the rightwing media which participated in spreading this lie.
    They’ve all just moved on to new lies and hoped everyone would forget their old ones.

  240. I think there are two arguments here. wj suggests that the bumper sticker is a bad argument, which I think is right, and I’d certainly be embarrassed if Dems won because people thought that being a Republican meant that you were a pedophile. However, given the number of bad arguments the Republicans have used over time (voter fraud, states’ rights, death panels, to pick just a few), I wonder if I’m being too squeemish.
    Marty’s argument seems to be a concern for tone. Given what has emanated from the current de facto head of the Republican party (and please don’t tell me that Trump is not the head of the Republican party, that dog will not hunt), I find his concern for tone quite precious…

  242. I don’t think a “concern for tone” is “precious”. As I’ve argued before, you are part fo the problem* if you use a broad brush when applying “fascist” or “nazi” or “racist” or, now “pedo” to an entire political party.
    Don’t get me wrong, I get as much schadenfreude as anyone when a self-righteous god squadder gets caught with his pants down. But this is nothing new. I have close relatives who used to send money to Jimmy Swaggart FFS.
    In spite of a lifetime of seeing some on the religious right acting badly, I can still engage with conservative christians without immediately mocking them or feeling automatically superior. I say that as an agnostic/Unitarian/liberal who bears all the scars of being the black sheep at every family reunion since the mid-80s.
    * “Problem” here defined as toxic political environment.

  243. MOORE FOR SENATE: COME FOR THE CORRUPTION,
    STAY FOR THE PEDOPHILIA!
    —
    you forgot the part where the current leader of the GOP is a known, and admitted, sexual predator who more than once made lewd remarks about his own young daughter who is also known for snooping around teenage beauty pageant dressing rooms.

  244. if you use a broad brush when applying “fascist” or “nazi” or “racist” or, now “pedo” to an entire political party.
    the thing is…. the GOP had their chance to reject men who embody sexual predation and objectification of young women / girls, last November. but they did not. they excused it. they tried to normalize it. some even embraced. the GOP, as a whole, certainly did not reject it.
    if they don’t want the label, they should think about the people they elect.

  245. This is exactly what I’m talking about.
    You say “the GOP” without acknowledging the Never Trumpers or the obvious deep divisions within the party.
    So because an insurgent movement was able to use winner take all primaries to get Trump nominated, all Pubs get saddled with the worst aspects of Trump?
    Obviously some GOP officials used poor judgment in deciding to work with Trump and either explicitly or implicitly becoming apologists for him, but not to draw a false equivalence, I recall many feminists who “looked the other way” with Bill Clinton as well … some still do.

  246. You say “the GOP” without acknowledging the Never Trumpers or the obvious deep divisions within the party.
    with good reason: statistics.
    IIRC, less than 10% of Republicans who voted didn’t vote for Trump. he got the most Republican votes ever. he got the highest number of primary votes ever in a Republican primary. and he still gets 80+% support from the GOP.
    the Never Trumpers are, sadly, a footnote. they are not a force in the GOP.
    the GOP is Trump supporters.
    So because an insurgent movement was able to use winner take all primaries to get Trump nominated, all Pubs get saddled with the worst aspects of Trump?
    no, they get saddled with Trump because they all, statistically speaking, supported him, cheered him, defended him, adulated him, excused him, voted for him even knowing everything he did – and all the present-tense conjugations apply, as well.
    he wasn’t elected by a radical fringe of the GOP, he was elected by the bulk of the GOP.

  248. briefly, the reason that sexual misbehavior on the part of conservatives is ‘a thing’ is because conservatives *also* claim moral high ground on the issue.
    jfk, Clinton – notorious horn dogs.
    Moore – hitting on teenagers, *plus* wants the ten commandments in his courtroom.
    people are, and should be, held to the standards they set for others.

  249. “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”
    I’m delighted by this, because (apart from the long-overdue ambiguity regarding Jesus’s parentage) it exemplifies so perfectly something I’ve been saying for years, if not here then certainly ad nauseam IRL: fundamentalist muslims, christians and jews all belong in the same circle of hell (if only there was one!), for their embrace of norms which applied thousands of years ago, on the sole basis of ancient religious texts, and are despised by modern societies. In fact, Ziegler’s remarks remind me of nothing so much as ISIS, and their enthusiastic adoption of slave markets, rape of pubertal girls etc. The scriptures have it, so it’s OK! Hallelujah!

  252. Trump also set the record for most primary votes cast *against* him … it was just divided amongst a crowded field during a populist wave.
    Also, to say that a Pub “supports the president” = approves of everything he stands for is questionable. Presidential support survey data is a blunt tool.
    As for giving Clinton a pass because he’s a “notorious horn dog”, sanctimony and hypocrisy are minor sins compared to sexual harassment. I always cringe when I see liberals make that argument.

  253. “I was using a Southernism.”
    I was born and raised in South Carolina. I know full well the import of “precious”.
    Bless your heart for trying to walk it back.

  254. About four decades ago I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting area.
    Two elderly ladies were commenting on two toddlers in the room.
    1stEL: “Oh! They’re so cute!”
    2ndEL: “Yes, but, bless their hearts, they’re still black.”

  255. So I’m a bit confused, are you saying that we have to pay attention when Republicans like Marty become tone police? This sounds a lot like the meme of the disaffected white voter who voted for Trump and if we had just paid a little more attention to them, Trump wouldn’t have been elected. I’m pretty sure that’s off, though I don’t have the energy to google that up for you.

  256. I’m saying that if you don’t like the current toxic political environment, then stop using a sawed-off shotgun to make your arguments.
    If you are enjoying the current state of affairs, then by all means, carry on.

  257. So because an insurgent movement was able to use winner take all primaries to get Trump nominated, all Pubs get saddled with the worst aspects of Trump?
    Why not? The Clinton analogy is pretty weak beer.
    I am having difficulty coming up with a similar scenario on the Dem side where they would nominate a controversial public figure who embodied all the attributes Democrats had spent decades claiming to abhor.
    The closest the Dems came to such a pass that I recall was ’72. G. Wallace was very much in contention for the nomination in the early primaries. If he had somehow won it, I don’t see a situation where northern Dems would have papered over the obvious ‘deep divisions’ and given their nose holding left handed support to him. The ‘deep divisions’ would have led to a total sundering of the party. That deep division was only overcome when southern segregationists left the party.
    The Never Trumpers may hold their noses at Trump’s racism and white nationalism, quibble about his trade policies, and throw their hands in the air about his narcissism and ignorance, but they are just fine with the dismantling of the New Deal regulatory state and tax cuts for the wealthy….because that is the Prime Directive.

  258. Also, to say that a Pub “supports the president” = approves of everything he stands for is questionable
    if Republicans we bothered by Trump they’ve had plenty of opportunities to abandon him. by and large, they have stuck with him.
    and not only have they stuck with him, “conservatives” have abandoned their previous stance that a candidate’s personal failings are important.

    In 2011, only 30% of white evangelical Protestants believed “elected officials can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal lives”. Now 72% do, says survey.

    after decades of moralistic scolding, the Bible-thumping hypocrites changed their minds between 2011 and 2016.
    they know what Trump did. and they literally Do. Not. Care.
    i’m glad the conservatives here disavow Trump. but they are in a very small minority. the GOP, to a first approximation, is all-in for the daughter-lusting, pussy-grabbing, serial-divorcee.
    about the Access Hollywood tape, which Steve Bannon has called “a litmus test”:

    In a separate poll, conducted by CBS and YouGov, Trump supporters in Ohio and Pennsylvania really weren’t moved by the video: 91 percent of his Ohio voters, and 90 percent of his Pennsylvania voters, said the tape didn’t change how they saw Trump at all.
    …
    Some Republican voters (28 percent) say they’d be more likely to vote for a down-ballot candidate who unendorsed Trump. But nearly as many (25 percent) say they’d be less likely to support a candidate who abandoned their party’s nominee.

    so, nobody should be a bit surprised when Moore wins. the GOP, by and large, is A.OK. with voting for sexual predators. political power is all that matters to them. sticking it to the liberals.

  259. FWIW, I won’t be surprised if Moore wins … but that’s in part an Alabama thing. I know the rest of the country tosses the South into one big pile of deplorable, but there are gradations. Folks in VA, NC, SC and GA will often look at AL and MS and shake their heads.

  260. he wasn’t elected by a radical fringe of the GOP, he was elected by the bulk of the GOP.
    This. A couple of Senators aside, I’m not seeing a groundswell of rending of garments for voting for this guy.

  261. Folks in VA, NC, SC and GA will often look at AL and MS and shake their heads.
    oh, i know. i live in NC (and my MiL lives in AL).
    i think the “live boy, dead girl” rule applies here, too.

  262. then stop using a sawed-off shotgun to make your arguments.
    Hmmm, I think you may be mixing up who is saying what. Marty, who said that he voted for everyone except for abstaining at the top of the ticket, argued the b’s citation of a bumper sticker was, Based on the news lately … trite and a bit tone deaf.
    It’s that last ‘tone deaf’ that I was pointing out. What sawed off shotgun is being wielded here?
    As for the yes, but MS and AL are worse, well, being from Mississippi, I’ve heard that a lot. It sure seems to me that it is more a case of them saying out loud what folks in other states like to whisper, so that head shaking doesn’t really mean much.
    You might say that VA proves your point, but Drum’s point about the change in voting demographic suggests that’s wrong
    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/chart-of-the-day-the-kids-are-finally-turning-out/
    It’s not that folks in Virginia had a change of heart, it is more like they got swamped, not that they had their moment on the road to Damascus.
    Of course, not all the people who live in those states are the problem. But the whole ‘the real racists are over there’ tends to cover up a lot of sins.

  263. If you are saying that one would prefer that Congressional Republicans be more strident and open in opposing Trump, then I agree. That’s not the same thing as being in the tank for the guy. If you don’t see that a large number of Pubs hate what he is doing to their party, then you have not been paying attention.
    Pubs are trying to get something, anything, from their agenda passed before the blowback removes them from power. You can feign a case of the vapours at their brazenly cynical transactional outlook, but you really shouldn’t be surprised and you really should not get holier than thou about it. Dems would do the same thing.

  264. As for giving Clinton a pass because he’s a “notorious horn dog”, sanctimony and hypocrisy are minor sins compared to sexual harassment.
    Pass?
    What do you think my thoughts are about Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior while in office? Or JFK’s for that matter? Are you making some assumptions here?
    Maybe you should ask me what I think, instead of assuming you know.
    If you want to call people here out for painting with a broad brush, then don’t do so by painting with a broad brush.
    When conservatives who leverage their nominal religious and moral beliefs for electoral advantage are then caught out behaving badly, they are frequently called out as hypocrites.
    Which is both reasonable and appropriate.
    That was my point.

  265. LJ-
    The bumper sticker comment is a sawed-off shotgun. Also see this morning’s comments … there is no walk back on tossing all Pubs in the same deplorable category.
    As for the “AL and MS are worse” stuff, I think it’s less about actual policy choices and more about the dilution of the genteel-anglophile vibe as one goes west from GA.
    I guess what I’m saying is the SC racist/misogynist will slather on a thicker coat of southern charm to cover the stench. So it’s not like Moore would be hated in SC per se, but he’s too tacky to be successful there.

  266. No, I was taking the argument that Dems had to be less ‘tone deaf’ to be one of those typical pearl clutching arguments. That’s why I talked about wj’s argument (not good to use bad arguments even if they got some traction) and marty’s about tone-deafness. I’m not sure how pointing out the irony of that is a case of the vapours or holier than thou.
    If the Republicans are trying to “something, anything”, then the key is for Dems not to shrink from calling them out on it imo. As far as the Dems would do the same thing, that’s high Broderism and should be treated as such. I’m wondering exactly how they would have gone about contacting Putin…

  267. russell-
    I am only drawing conclusions from the “notorious horn dog” comment which really struck me wrong.
    The comment made me cringe. I don’t pretend to “know” you in anything other than the most superficial sense.

  268. I agree with wj and marty.
    Generalizing Moore’s behavior to the entire GOP is unfair and counterproductive.
    There are any number of ways in which their policies seem to be in direct conflict with their alleged religious beliefs. If you want to make that accusation there is plenty of solid support. No need to introduce a diversion.

  270. Generalizing Moore’s behavior to the entire GOP is unfair and counterproductive.
    who is doing that?
    what i said was that the GOP is OK with Moore’s (and Trump’s) behavior. as long as they can put Republican asses in important chairs, they don’t care what those asses have been up to – as long as it doesn’t involve gay stuff.

  271. If you don’t see that a large number of Pubs hate what he is doing to their party, then you have not been paying attention.
    define “large”. Provide evidence.
    You can feign a case of the vapours at their brazenly cynical transactional outlook
    oh, dear.

  272. cleek,
    who is doing that?
    I’d say a slogan that says:
    GOP: COME FOR THE CORRUPTION,
    STAY FOR THE PEDOPHILIA!
    is doing that.

  274. Stages 1 and 2 make sense. (Although I would submit that it is possible to be outraged without being the father of a daughter.) The other two are milestones on the way to a very bad place. No matter who the nominee in question is.

  276. Just to emphasize that some religious conservatives have not descended to tribalism over morality:**

    Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.
    — Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2017

    The more I read this morning, the more disgusted I get at the blind tribalism on display. But I don’t want to lose track of the fact that it is far from universal. At least outside the halls of Congress (and the GOP in Alabama).
    ** Yes, Romney fell from grace during his Presidential campaign. But perhaps he has regain at least some of his moral sense.

  277. So, a question:
    What do we / should we expect from public figures by way of personal moral rectitude?
    Is it necessary for someone to be ‘good’, defined however you want, in order to hold a position of public responsibility?
    ‘Good’ in what ways?
    It’s not uncommon, in politics and otherwise, for people who are high achievers or uncommonly gifted to be weak in other aspects of their personality or character.
    Holding national political office – one POTUS, 100 Senators, 435 Reps, in a nation of 330 million – has to put you in some kind of ‘high achiever’ category.
    What do we expect of them?
    What I also observe is that sexual politics and access to attractive young people seems to be more or less baked in to the power culture in DC. Seems to me, anyway.
    Do I approve of it? No, I don’t. I think it’s a corrupt exploitation of power, position, and office. Whether consensual or not.
    Am I shocked to find that it occurs? No, I’m not.
    I’m curious to know what the rest of you think about this.

  278. byomtov : 11:42
    no, i’m definitely not seeing it that way.
    the context for pedophilia here is Moore (and Trump, to a lesser degree). nobody is saying it’s widespread in the GOP base, only that they rank it lower than party ID, when it comes to voting.

  279. Do I approve of it? No, I don’t. I think it’s a corrupt exploitation of power, position, and office. Whether consensual or not.
    Am I shocked to find that it occurs? No, I’m not.
    I’m curious to know what the rest of you think about this.
    I agree that it is a corrupt exploitation of power and position. But I would differentiate between what consenting adults are lured into doing (e.g. Monica Lewinsky) and what gets inflicted on teenagers.
    I may be disgusted that adults are seduced by power, or decide (even if correctly) that advancement requires immoral behavior from them. But I wouldn’t consider that disqualifying. A big negative, perhaps, but not flat out disqualifying.
    Exploiting children and teens is a whole different deal for me. Do that, any you are simply beyond the pale. Period.

  280. Exploiting children and teens is a whole different deal for me.
    I agree.
    It was more of a general question, mostly a follow-on to pro bono’s reaction to my comment about the notorious horndogs.
    Personally, I’d like to see some kind of standard of behavior applied to federal office holders. Simple stuff, like no sleeping with people who are in your direct line of report. No sleeping with people who fall within any area for which you have responsibility or oversight.
    Stuff like that is normal in the military, and in most private organizations. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask. It’s just very very basic ethics and avoidance of conflict of interest and abuse of office.
    As far as Moore goes, if he broke the law, he should IMO stand down. If he was merely profoundly creepy, it’s up to the citizens of AL, and good luck to them.
    14 seems like it should be against the law, but I think that varies by state. Depends on what he got up to with her, as well.
    But not only is it not my business, I don’t even want anything to do with it.

  281. What strikes me as odd (I guess? – for lack of a better word) is that Trump can’t be criticized in quite the same way as Moore, since Moore had made sanctimonious moralizing a cornerstone – if not THE cornerstone – of his political career.
    Trump’s always been about his personal power, thus consistent (in some sense, at least). That’s not an excuse for his supposedly evangelical supporters, of course, but it’s still an odd thing to contemplate.

  282. nobody is saying it’s widespread in the GOP base, only that they rank it lower than party ID, when it comes to voting.
    Yes. That wide swaths of the public voted for this guy is testament to….what? To me it is comprehensible on ‘transactional’ grounds (gotta’ get those tax cuts!), but incomprehensible on others (Really? Donald fucking Trump? Are you kidding?).
    See also on left side of the political aisle and endless debates about “lesser evilism”.

  283. party line:

    Brett J. Talley, President Trump’s nominee to be a federal judge in Alabama, has never tried a case, was unanimously rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn.’s judicial rating committee, has practiced law for only three years and, as a blogger last year, displayed a degree of partisanship unusual for a judicial nominee, denouncing “Hillary Rotten Clinton” and pledging support for the National Rifle Assn.
    On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, approved him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.
    Talley, 36, is part of what Trump has called the “untold story” of his success in filling the courts with young conservatives.

    GOP 2018: come for the corruption, stay for the incompetence.

  284. Exploitation of anyone is problematic, and where the power relationship is unbalanced it is hard to judge any sexual relations as other than exploitative. But what is also problematic is judging occasions where there has been true consensuality. In the case of your two notorious horndogs, they were both magnetically attractive, charismatic men. I know a couple of women who met Clinton, and who say they would have in a heartbeat. So if a woman in a work relationship with such a man flirts with him, and makes the first move, we are expecting the man to resist on principle. While this would certainly be better, wiser and more morally correct, it is a lot to ask. Obviously, nothing I say here excuses the exploitation of children, but teenagers of 18 or more become a somewhat more problematic proposition, although certainly a case where the horndog would be wise to exercise iron self-control. It is never OK for the man, in a position of power, to make the move.

  285. if a woman in a work relationship with such a man flirts with him, and makes the first move, we are expecting the man to resist on principle. While this would certainly be better, wiser and more morally correct, it is a lot to ask
    It arguably is, but it’s no more than we ask of folks holding a variety of other positions of responsibility.
    Asking to be POTUS, or US Senator, or US House Rep, is a lot to ask. In that context, it seems a reasonable quid pro quo.
    You want to hold power. We require that you not take advantage of whatever opportunities that position offers you to get nookie.
    I’d say it really ought to be fair grounds for impeachment, from any office. Don’t sleep with people over whom you have authority. Don’t sleep with them, don’t go into business with them, don’t take gifts from them. None of it. It’s an invitation to self-dealing and corruption and abuse of office.
    Actually, never mind the invitation part. It *is* self-dealing and corruption and abuse of office.
    As far as Moore goes, it is extremely creepy for a middle aged guy to be hitting on teenagers, especially 14 year olds. And especially under color of “watching them” for mom and dad.
    I don’t know what the law is in AL, but if it’s against the law, Moore should stand down.
    If it’s not against the law, and I lived in AL, I would vote against the man purely for that behavior.
    But, I don’t live in AL, so if it’s not against the law, it’s not something I have anything to say about. Or at least, nothing to say that Moore is obliged to pay attention to.
    It’s between Moore and the people of AL. Best of luck to them.

  286. GOP 2018: come for the corruption, stay for the incompetence.
    I think you’ve got that backwards. It’s more like come for the incompetence, stay for the corruption. The office holders may be coming for the corruption, but the voters seem to be valuing the incompetence rather more. See also the bad-mouthing of “elites” — i.e. anyone who actually knows what they are talking about.

  287. russell: mostly a follow-on to pro bono’s reaction to my comment about the notorious horndogs
    It was Pollo de muerte, not pro bono.

  288. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, approved him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.
    Honestly, just when I think I am no longer shockable, something like this gets posted. Unbelievable.
    In case anybody thinks I was being unduly flippant above about something serious, I would just say it may be hard for you to imagine how enchanted an English person can be by a word like horndog.

  289. “What far too many of the GOP defenses of Moore, both before and after the new allegations, demonstrate is that the endgame of reflexive partisan loyalty is turning a blind eye to bad behavior and bad policy in the service of consolidating political power for its own sake. Partisanship, at its worst, becomes an excuse for almost anything, no matter how awful, for the sole reason that well, you wouldn’t want to vote for the other guy.”
    The Alabama GOP’s Awful Responses to the Roy Moore Sexual Assault Allegations Are Dead-End Partisanship At Its Worst: Jeff Flake wonders: Is this what the Republican Party has become?
    “Sex offenders who live in municipalities have to report to the local police chief as well as the county sheriff and obtain travel permits from both. SORCNA prohibits sex offenders from living or working within 2,000 feet (about one-third of a mile) of a school or child care facility, regardless of whether their crimes involved children. They also may not work within 500 feet of “a playground, park, athletic field or facility, or any other business having a principal purpose of caring for, educating, or entertaining minors”—again, even if their offenses had nothing to do with children.”
    Going ‘a Little Too Far’ With a 14-Year-Old Girl Could Have Ruined Roy Moore’s Life: Thanks to Alabama’s onerous sex offender law, the Republican Senate candidate would still be paying for his mistake four decades later.

  290. >>14 seems like it should be against the law, but I think that varies by state. Depends on what he got up to with her, as well.
    I believe the age of consent in AL is 16. So two of the three accusers may have been of age, but the 14yo was illegal. I use the past tense because I assume the SOL is up.

  292. See also the bad-mouthing of “elites” — i.e. anyone who actually knows what they are talking about.
    one of the first things all cult leaders do is to convince the flock that nobody outside of the cult can be trusted.
    it’s a total coincidence that this is also the business model of all right wing media.
    Jeff Flake wonders: Is this what the Republican Party has become?
    oh, Jeff…

  293. As a historical footnote, if I’m not mistaken JFK shared a girlfriend with Sam Giancana.
    A fact which still, more than 50 years later, flabbergasts me.
    If Moore’s relationship with the girl was illegal, he should stand down, even if the statute of limitations has expired. It would be nice if there was some kind of limit on what the body politic would overlook.
    I don’t live in AL, I’m not a (R), there’s bugger all I can do about it as far as I can tell. Given election law in AL, I’m not sure what anyone can do about it.
    Wait, I know – maybe vote for Doug Jones! Silly russell.

  294. Wait, I know – maybe vote for Doug Jones! Silly russell.
    CharlesWT’s first reason.com link has a bunch of choice quotes about why people can’t do that. (hint: Jones is … a Democrat)

  295. Pollo de muerte:
    … sanctimony and hypocrisy are minor sins compared to sexual harassment.
    Hmmmmm…disagree. Sanctimony and hypocrisy, like kleptomania, are fairly permanent character traits. Shoplifting is a crime; it may be a sign of kleptomania, or it may be a one-time offense.
    … a large number of Pubs hate what he is doing to their party.
    Large numbers of Americans hate Him, Trump for what he’s doing to the country. Concern for country is patriotism; concern for party is … well, there’s a word for it.
    You can feign a case of the vapours at their brazenly cynical transactional outlook, but you really shouldn’t be surprised and you really should not get holier than thou about it. Dems would do the same thing.
    This Dem would have “locked up” Dick and Dubya for their conspiracy to launch their splendid little war on false pretenses. The Dem we actually elected President chose to “look forward, not back”. It is my sincere hope that the next Dem POTUS will not make the same mistake w.r.t. the Trump Syndicate. But until we see what happens, stop “painting with a broad brush”.
    –TP

  296. Current age of consent in AL is 16, but at the time of the alleged encounter the age of consent for marriage was 14. So “courting” a 14 year-old would have been legal, but presumably not the activity alleged.

  297. A lawyer who happens to be in a courthouse where a child is waiting for her custody to be litigated, and then grooms that child for a sexual opportunity – how low can you go.
    On the other hand, what GftNC said. Adults’ sexuality, marriages, relationships, and love lives don’t always follow a playbook. People shouldn’t make assumptions, and should keep their noses out of other people’s business unless there’s a suspicion of exploitation, which can be (rebuttably) presumed in certain circumstances. When that happens, the presumed victim should be supported.

  298. When that happens, the presumed victim should be supported.
    Just to follow up on this a bit, since it’s quiet here: in the case of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, there would have been no “victim” but for the public bullying of Monica Lewinsky (and the Clintons, especially Hillary – different conversation), which Lewinsky has eloquently spoken about. In other words, she wasn’t so much victimized by a love affair (gone bad), but by relentless Republican sensationalization of the affair, extreme invasion of her privacy by the special prosecutor and judicial system, and deeply sexist rhetoric and judgment all over the place, on both sides of the aisle. If people haven’t heard from her since, I would suggest listening to her Ted Talk. She’s an extremely intelligent, passionate and sympathetic (IMO) woman. I admire her, and can’t even imagine the pain she endured for, as she put it, “falling in love with her boss.”

  300. Amen to most of sapient’s 08.48. My only caveat is that his affair with her was in the context of the greatest imaginable power disparity (POTUS to intern), so unless she made the very definite first move (we know she flirted) he was very much at fault, and even so (according to russell’s rubric, which is hard to really disagree with) he should have resisted. Their (the Clintons’) treatment of her thereafter was abominable, amidst all the other abominable treatment she received, and I agree, I think she has matured into an admirable woman.

  302. TP–
    We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the relative levels of bad between sanctimony and hypocrisy on the one hand and sexual harassment on the other. GftNC’s post just above this one states my thoughts on Clinton’s affair. This isn’t about peccadilloes or just a BJ, it’s about power disparity. I can’t give him a pass or treat what happened as an “office romance”.
    Related to this, when I talk about how Dems would “do the same thing” w/r/t trying to get their agenda through under a president they find objectionable, if a Pub had done what Bill Clinton did to ML, torches and pitchforks would have come out on the left. If you find sanctimony and hypocrisy so bad, I suggest you peek in the mirror on that score because Dems did not cover themselves in glory when they looked the other way both with the power disparity and the way ML was vilified afterwards.

  304. if a Pub had done what Bill Clinton did to ML, torches and pitchforks would have come out on the left.
    no need to be hypothetical, there is no shortage of examples, on both sides of the aisle, of people holding national elected office getting caught out in sexual bad behavior.
    sometimes pitchforks come out, sometimes they don’t. sometimes they come out from the same side of the aisle.
    whether any of that happens seems driven more by the political advantage to be gotten, in the particular situation, than anything else.

  306. there is, amazingly enough, a wikipedia page on sex scandals among federal officeholders. no link, i’m on my tablet and can’t figure out how to capture the url. google it up, you’ll find it.
    lots of bad behavior on both sides of the aisle. what struck me was the number of folks who were hoist by their own petard after calling for clinton to resign.
    regarding lewinsky, yes, she was treated like crap. become a liability to a powerful person and you will be treated like crap. lewinsky was a kid, clinton was the potus. he was in the wrong.
    IMO it’s appropriate to require people holding positions of responsibility to not take advantage of their office to get laid. we expect it of lots of other folks, they should be no different.

  307. Jeff Flake wonders: Is this what the Republican Party has become?
    Flake is on the committee that voted in favor of the 36-yr old, no experience judge.
    hypocrite

  308. IMO it’s appropriate to require people holding positions of responsibility to not take advantage of their office to get laid. we expect it of lots of other folks, they should be no different.
    In order to be on the moral high ground, it’s best to have one partner (preferably in a marriage), or no partner. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have trouble with that. I would prefer a world where we would make fewer judgments about the private behavior of other adults. Since privacy is a thing of the past, that’s not the world we have.
    it’s about power disparity. I can’t give him a pass or treat what happened as an “office romance”.
    As to power differentials, every relationship on earth has power imbalances, including happy marriages, where the imbalances are managed well. It’s the abuse of power that needs to be identified as wrong. It’s an obvious problem where sexual favors are expected in exchange for promotions, etc., or where people are made to feel uncomfortable at work. But if women can’t be deemed to have truly consented in a relationship where there’s simply an imbalance of power, then historically most women have lived in a perpetual state of abuse.
    if a Pub had done what Bill Clinton did to ML, torches and pitchforks would have come out on the left.
    Politicians are on notice that they might pay a price for infidelity, as John Edwards and others have discovered. I’m okay with that as long as it’s applied to everyone. The fact that Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich, among so many others, were in the front row of stone throwers at Bill Clinton, and that our current president was elected even though his abuse of women was and is public, isn’t a great sign.
    It was comforting to have someone like Barack Obama in office, who seems to have been morally scrupulous in every way. The creepiness factor wasn’t there at all. Obviously, that’s the best case scenario.

  309. if a Pub had done what Bill Clinton did to ML, torches and pitchforks would have come out on the left.
    Really? In 2006 they had every opportunity to impeach George Bush for war crimes, and they pretty much let Wall Street off the hook in 2008. Unlike Republicans, Dems tend to be a bit feckless in this regard. If Bush had conducted an affair with an intern there would have been a lot of mockery on the left, and maybe a few pitchforks would have been waved, but a special prosecutor, a grand jury and impeachment? I truly doubt it.
    As for Clinton and his defenders trashing Monica, yes, that was pretty bad. But again, context matters. It was a consensual affair, that was turned into a near constitutional crisis as the GOP attempted to remove Clinton from office for a blowjob….giving new meaning to the term “high crimes and misdemeanors”.

  310. “It’s the abuse of power that needs to be identified as wrong. It’s an obvious problem where sexual favors are expected in exchange for promotions, etc., or where people are made to feel uncomfortable at work.”
    I think this leaves out taking advantage of a star struck underling who is clearly enamored for your own sexual satisfaction.
    Abusing power is not just requiring someone to provide sex, it’s also taking advantage of their emotional state for your pleasure.
    The fact that ML was a full willing participant doesn’t change the fact that Clinton was abusing his power.
    If you were to convince me that he returned her deep emotional attachment I would be somewhat more understanding. I an unconvinced.

  311. I think this leaves out taking advantage of a star struck underling who is clearly enamored for your own sexual satisfaction.
    Kind of condescending.
    If you were to convince me that he returned her deep emotional attachment I would be somewhat more understanding. I an unconvinced.
    It’s nice to imagine that all relationships have the same degree of emotional attachments. When we become adults (even when women do) we should be presumed to have agency.

  312. I believe agency includes not taking advantage of someone who clearly is more emotionally attached than you are.
    Agency works both ways. It is not her decision but his, that is being criticized.
    If you don’t believe in the concept of using people, including men, then I see your point.

  313. If you don’t believe in the concept of using people, including men, then I see your point.
    I don’t think I’m in a position to determine that. If the relationship had been kept private, as both parties apparently wanted, I wouldn’t be in a position to judge at all.
    When people conform to society’s expectations about how they’re supposed to conduct their lives, the rest of us feel better.

  314. The fact that ML was a full willing participant doesn’t change the fact that Clinton was abusing his power.
    Abuse of power? Undoubtedly. An impeachable offense? Opinions differ.

  316. I would prefer a world where we would make fewer judgments about the private behavior of other adults
    i think maybe i’m not being clear enough about my concern here.
    i agree that private relationships between consenting adults are and ought to be the sole business of the parties involved.
    what i think is not appropriate are relationships between people where one is in a position of authority or oversight over another.
    so, staff member, employee in an industry that someone has oversight over. etc.
    it’s not about the sexual relationship, it’s about maintaining the reality and credible appearance of the responsible exercise of power of office.
    POTUS, member of Congress, federal judge, I would even say civil service employee. not only don’t sleep with people who are in your scope of authority, don’t have any kind of relationship with them or engage in transactional behaviors with them that can be seen as an abuse of office.
    that is a quite common requirement for most positions of authority in the private sector, it does not seem to be unreasonable requirement for national office.

  317. bobbyp-
    I think the impeachment was silly.
    I brought up the ML scandal in the context of both sides being willing to overlook bad behavior for political expediency.

  318. As I said, it’s difficult to disagree with russell’s rubric, now re-stated at 12.02 above. It’s clear that adhering to these rules eliminates any suggestion of undue influence, exploitation etc. In the case of people falling in love, one party (admittedly often the subordinate party, often the woman) is free (albeit often with inconvenience and difficulty) to resign and find employment elsewhere. Life is not perfect, and often not fair. Alas.

  319. that is a quite common requirement for most positions of authority in the private sector, it does not seem to be unreasonable requirement for national office.
    It is and it should be.
    While the Clinton-Lewinsky matter may have some complexity to it, I lean much more toward marty’s view than sapient’s.
    Fundamentally, Clinton was wrong for a number of reasons, not least that, IIRC, he was married.

  320. One can only imagine how the GOP would have reacted if it had been Hilary, rather than Bill, who had been carrying on with others outside marriage. Taking hysteria to a whole different level!

  321. IIRC, he was married.
    So, on this ground specifically, wrong how? Morally wrong? Politically wrong? If he had had an affair with a woman he was not in a work relationship with (and after all, he had many), how would his affair be different from any common-or-garden adulterer (although obviously given the likelihood of exposure, more unwise)? And do you regard adulterers as unfit for political office? Surely in the case of adultery, the wrong done is to the spouse and possibly the children, not to anybody else? It seems to me, byomtov, that this is a very slippery slope to start going down, that we demand our politicians be snow white in their personal lives when nobody else is required to be so when doing their job.

  322. IIRC, he was married.
    So, on this ground specifically, wrong how? Morally wrong? Politically wrong? If he had had an affair with a woman he was not in a work relationship with (and after all, he had many), how would his affair be different from any common-or-garden adulterer (although obviously given the likelihood of exposure, more unwise)? And do you regard adulterers as unfit for political office? Surely in the case of adultery, the wrong done is to the spouse and possibly the children, not to anybody else? It seems to me, byomtov, that this is a very slippery slope to start going down, that we demand our politicians be snow white in their personal lives when nobody else is required to be so when doing their job.

  323. IIRC, he was married.
    So, on this ground specifically, wrong how? Morally wrong? Politically wrong? If he had had an affair with a woman he was not in a work relationship with (and after all, he had many), how would his affair be different from any common-or-garden adulterer (although obviously given the likelihood of exposure, more unwise)? And do you regard adulterers as unfit for political office? Surely in the case of adultery, the wrong done is to the spouse and possibly the children, not to anybody else? It seems to me, byomtov, that this is a very slippery slope to start going down, that we demand our politicians be snow white in their personal lives when nobody else is required to be so when doing their job.

  325. I agree with GftNC at 12:21. I don’t mind a requirement that people stay away from sexual relationships with each other when they work in a hierarchical relationship.
    As to Presidents of the United States, Bill Clinton was far from the first person who engaged in that kind of conduct, so now that he’s been used as an example, one would think people would be more cautious going forward. Donald Trump is maybe done with philandering, and has taken up golf, but he’s certainly abusive in other ways, which raises another point: sex is apparently really fun for people to read about and think about, but there are a whole lot of ways in which people abuse their power, and Donald Trump is a walking, talking example of many of them. There are also infinite ways of being cruel and unfair to one’s spouse. In the scheme of things, if I had learned about Bill Clinton’s sin and been privy to that secret, I would have looked the other way as being none of my business.

  326. I brought up the ML scandal in the context of both sides being willing to overlook bad behavior for political expediency.
    Well, sure. But it appeared as if you were invoking an equivalency, not a similarity. For example, you won’t see me going to the barricades for Robert Menendez…but the jury is still out I hear.
    Similarly, Cheney and Bush should be brought up on war crime charges at the Hague…and Obama? Well, don’t let me drone on.
    Regards,

  327. Gfntc,
    Morally wrong.
    If we barred adulterers from public office we would likely have a much diminished slate to choose from.
    It is not clear to me what “politically wrong” would mean. Does it mean something that we should consider bars the individual from public office? Opinions differ as to what that might be.

  328. “I brought up the ML scandal in the context of both sides being willing to overlook bad behavior for political expediency.”
    Yeah, it’s just TERRIBLE how dems got Anthony Weiner elected two times to the Senate, after all his misdeeds; as opposed to the GOPs shining example of driving Dave Vitter out of politics.

  329. If we barred adulterers from public office we would likely have a much diminished slate to choose from.
    I agree, which is why I asked the question. You seemed to be including it as a “wrong” in a discussion about abuse of power, which can be protected against by observing the rules russell has listed, so I wondered whether you had anything else in mind specifically as it related to the matter in question.
    You’re right, politically wrong was pretty ambiguous, but I think I did mean something that would bar one from public office. Badly put, and badly thought through since I can’t immediately give examples which aren’t also illegal. Maybe it’s because it’s late…

  330. he’s certainly abusive in other ways
    Donald Trump abuses his position every single day that he holds office.
    Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky is almost laughably small potatoes in comparison.
    Clinton was remarkably immature for someone of his age and position. Irresponsible, recklessly so, in his personal life.
    Trump is a crook.

  332. If the goal was to cut taxes for the middle class, they needed only to increase the standard deduction and/or increase the personal exemption (rather than eliminating it, certainly). Done. Mission accomplished. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
    Even if they wanted to lower corporate taxes at the same time, they still could have done that.
    Whatever…

  333. “You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase, but what we are doing is targeting levels of income and looking at the average in those levels and the average will be tax relief for the average taxpayer in each of those segments.”
    Wow, that sounds like literally every tax policy ever proposed. It really sucks when politicians tell the truth.

  334. It really sucks when politicians tell the truth.
    The point is that it’s not what he said publicly for some time. He’s not being criticized for the subsequent correction. He’s being criticized for the initial “mis-speaking.”

  335. Besides that, if they did what I described, no one would see a tax increase because of changes to the code.
    Maybe that would be a bad idea, but they’re going to increase deficits anyway with the plan they’re putting forth. It’s just a question of who gets to keep the money.

  336. once more on accusing the GOP base of being pedophiles: while i certainly never did that, i can’t speak for the LA Times:

    We need to talk about the segment of American culture that probably doesn’t think the allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore are particularly damning, the segment that will blanch at only two accusations in the Washington Post expose: He pursued a 14-year-old-girl without first getting her parents’ permission, and he initiated sexual contact outside of marriage. That segment is evangelicalism. In that world, which Moore travels in and I grew up in, 14-year-old girls courting adult men isn’t uncommon.
    I use the phrase “14-year-old girls courting adult men,” rather than “adult men courting 14-year-old girls,” for a reason: Evangelicals routinely frame these relationships in those terms. That’s how I was introduced to these relationships as a home-schooled teenager in the 1990s, and it’s the language that my friends and I would use to discuss girls we knew who were in parent-sanctioned relationships with older men.

  337. It really sucks when politicians tell the truth.
    obviously, some folks will come out on top in whatever tax regime pops out of congress when all is said and done, and some won’t.
    the whole “mis-spoke” thing just cracked me up.

  338. These questions don’t seem that hard:
    – Bill Clinton was wrong to dally with ML, because of the unequal power relationship
    – Democrats should be willing to say so
    – Impeaching Clinton for it was a ridiculous abuse of process
    – Many Republicans are grossly hypocritical about sexual morality
    – Abusive relationships aside, I think the sexual morality of politicians is none of my business. But other voters are entitled to their own views
    – What Roy Moore is alleged to have done ought to disqualify him from office
    – Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ought to be jail for war crimes. But I can see why Obama didn’t want to go there

  339. I agree with you, Pro Bono, except for this:
    – Bill Clinton was wrong to dally with ML, because of the unequal power relationship
    That means that women can’t decide to have relationships with men who have power. That’s ridiculous. If Bill Clinton’s relationship was wrong, it’s because [whatever marital personal morality, etc., and] he caused unnecessary discomfort and embarrassment in his workplace, and to his Democratic allies. [The people who caused embarrassment to the country were Republicans, including faithless friend, Linda Tripp, whose story in this is horrifying.]
    ALMOST ALL WOMEN HAVE LESS POWER THAN ALMOST ALL MEN.
    That’s changing, and thank goodness! But does that mean all people should remain celibate until full equality is attained? I think that many people would be disappointed if that were to occur.

  340. So just to rephrase:
    We, the people, are freaked out by illicit sexual relationships (adultery) in our midst, especially in the workplace. It’s creepy, icky, and we don’t want to deal with it. As to unequal power relationships, we can’t sort that out, so don’t have consensual sex that we know about. Don’t ever do that.
    P.S. Also, don’t abuse people.

  341. adultery and sleeping with people who are in your sphere of authority often overlap, but are not the same thing.

  342. adultery and sleeping with people who are in your sphere of authority often overlap, but are not the same thing..
    Maybe. But if Bill Clinton had been “fooling around” with a woman who worked at the Dubliner, there still would have been hell to pay.
    I don’t really think that that whole thing was about sphere of authority.

  343. Let’s say that Hillary and Bill agreed to have an open relationship (bear with me for a minute here). What would people think here about what he did? I realize that the counterfactual is a bit farfetched, but should people having multiple partners disqualify them from holding public office? If so, why?
    To put my cards on the table, I recognize that this is a fact of life (at least currently), and no one is going to get elected if they proclaim that they are in an open relationship, but that’s me accepting that this is how people vote. I cannot offer an answer to why it is ‘wrong’, just can say that this is the way things are.

  345. I don’t really think that that whole thing was about sphere of authority.
    we agree
    What would people think here about what he did?
    it’s your thing, do what you wanna do.
    don’t do it with people who are among your reports, or over whom you have some responsibility for oversight.
    to me, this is very very basic professional ethics. don’t rob the till, don’t sleep with staff.

  346. to me, this is very very basic professional ethics. don’t rob the till, don’t sleep with staff.
    This seems right. I think that the logic behind this is more about the appearance of inappropriate favoritism, and a general atmosphere of professionalism in the office.
    I start getting less on board when we say it’s because of “unequal power relationships”. When it’s phrased that way, it seems that we miss a whole host of unequal power relationships, and that we’re also insisting that people not step out of their social class in matters of romance.

  347. Let’s say that Hillary and Bill agreed to have an open relationship (bear with me for a minute here). What would people think here about what he did? I realize that the counterfactual is a bit farfetched, but should people having multiple partners disqualify them from holding public office? If so, why?
    Well personally, I don’t think it should disqualify them, but as you remark in your second paragraph, in realpolitik it would. Again, personally, I don’t think adultery should disqualify people, just as being gay shouldn’t (not saying homosexuality is any kind of moral wrong, unlike adultery – and even adultery is complicated depending on personal circumstances), unless the paractitioner has built a career and a following condemning adultery, or homosexuality.
    I am a child of the time in which I came of age, I do not think any sexual practice is wrong where there is no victim, and in the case of adultery, although betrayal and lying are usually involved, and frequent harm inflicted on spouses and children, I do not think it a disqualification for political office. As the son of the adult carpenter previously referenced said (and he said several interesting and tolerant things, despite the appalling intolerance of some of his modern followers) “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone”.

  348. I think that the logic behind this is more about the appearance of inappropriate favoritism, and a general atmosphere of professionalism in the office.
    Yes, exactly. Thank you for boiling it down better than I seem to be able to do.

  349. Let’s say that Hillary and Bill agreed to have an open relationship (bear with me for a minute here). What would people think here about what he did?
    I’m old fashioned enough that I take a dim view of “open marriages.”** If you don’t want to make a commitment, don’t get married. It’s not like there’s much remaining social stigma attached to shacking up with someone.
    That said, I don’t think it’s disqualifying for political office. A scummy politician who is competent at doing his job and trying to do what I regard as the right thing is far better, IMHO, than someone whose personal morality is aligned with mine but who is incompetent and/or trying to do what I regard as the wrong thing.
    ** Note that this is a separate question from someone who is involved in a ménage à trois. An arrangement which I can’t imagine being in myself, but which I have seen work enough times to be relatively comfortable with in others. (Groups of 4 or more, on the other hand, never seem to work for long.)

  350. HSH,
    If the goal was to cut taxes for the middle class, they needed only to increase the standard deduction and/or increase the personal exemption (rather than eliminating it, certainly). Done. Mission accomplished. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
    Yes. Or reduced the rate on the lower brackets a point or two. Nothing to it.
    It got all tricky because the prime objectives were:
    1. Reduce the corporate tax
    2. Reduce the rate paid by high income individuals (which was done by raising the threshold for the top rate)
    3. Eliminate the estate tax.
    The rest is for show, and to poke blue states in the eye.

  353. I continue to disagree with sapient about Clinton and Lewinsky.
    I don’t say that the POTUS is disqualified from any sexual relationship because he’s the most powerful man in the world. I say that a workplace manager is disqualified from a sexual relationship with any employee who reports to him, directly or indirectly. Because he has a duty of care to his staff, which he will be unable to fulfil if the relationship goes wrong, as relationships often do.
    In this case, Lewinsky was undoubtedly damaged by the affair – she says so. Yes, the immediate cause was the disgusting behaviour of Republican inquisitors, but that was predictable, and Clinton was perfectly placed to predict it. He should have known better, and it’s not close.

  354. Pro Bono, given sapient’s response to russell posted on November 13, 2017 at 09:50 AM, it seems to me you largely agree. What am I missing?
    (Also, too, why are you being critical of Clinton? If you continue to defy the directives, I’m going to have your membership revoked.)

  357. I say that a workplace manager is disqualified from a sexual relationship with any employee who reports to him, directly or indirectly. Because he has a duty of care to his staff, which he will be unable to fulfil if the relationship goes wrong, as relationships often do.
    I agree that what you’ve stated is “best practices.” I think focusing on consensual relationships when there’s so much going on that isn’t consensual is the wrong focus. Kind of like marijuana versus heroin. It also muddies the waters about what abuse is.
    In this case, Lewinsky was undoubtedly damaged by the affair – she says so.
    Lots of love affairs are ill advised. Hers was particularly painful because it was made public. Part of being human is doing things that are ill-advised. There is plenty of encouragement in our culture for being reckless in “love”, and a lot of people take that seriously.
    He should have known better
    I agree. He probably did know better. I think we all agree that it was inappropriate. The inappropriate affairs that have been had by attractive and charismatic people are legion. However, consensual affairs are not the same as abuse. We all know now that nothing is private. Clinton had less reason to believe that than, say, John Edwards.
    There is too much to be truly outraged about than worrying about two people wanting to touch each other. But, again, Obama’s apparent domestic contentment is way more attractive to me than Clinton’s proclivities.

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