The Pied Pipers of the Left

    By HSG on Wed, 01/04/2017 - 9:07pm |

    With Trump’s inauguration still weeks away, Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect is calling for progressives to begin building a public case for impeachment by “keep[ing] a running dossier [on Trump’s illegal actions] and forward[ing] updates at least weekly to the House Judiciary Committee.” Salon’s Heather “Digby” Parton is echoing Kuttner. It’s a terrible idea.

    There is no chance it will succeed. The only way to remove a president is first for a majority of the House of Representatives to vote for impeachment and next for two thirds of the Senate to vote for conviction. Given the extant evidence, neither the Republican House nor the Republican Senate will accede to the wishes of those seeking Trump’s removal.

    librewolf's picture

    How Trump Addresses Economic Inequality

    By librewolf on Wed, 01/04/2017 - 2:17pm |

    How does Donald Trump, who has sold himself as a 'populist', plan to deal with the economic disparity in the country? The same way he seems to do most things; he doubles down on inequality.

    Richard Day's picture

    THE BIG SHORT

    By Richard Day on Tue, 01/03/2017 - 6:02pm |

    I came upon the greatest holiday musical comedy of all time.

    THE BIG SHORT

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short_(film)

    Christian Bale plays the drums.

    This cinematic masterpiece chronicles events occurring between the years of 2002 and 2008.

    librewolf's picture

    How Do Republicon Wet Dreams Serve the People?

    By librewolf on Tue, 01/03/2017 - 2:34pm |

    Sorry for the crudeness, but it really chafes me that the Republicon laundry list, that they spent the last FOUR YEARS 'practicing', is in anyway positive for the people of the United States?

    Who wins by cutting taxes for the wealthy?

    Who wins by removing regulations (read constraints to protect: the people, consumers, our social institutions, the environment, etc)?

    Who wins by cutting Medicaid - medical care for the poor?

    Who wins by CORPORATIZING (aka 'privatizing') the VA, education, social security, medicare, and on and on?

    Summary - The Role of Money in Elections, 2016 in Particular

    By Peter Schwartz on Tue, 01/03/2017 - 10:13am |

    When people talk about money in politics, they are usually referring to money expended on elections, but you [Peracles] show that that's just the tip of an iceberg of communications infrastructure the goes much deeper and wider below the surface. It's this infrastructure that creates the, how to put it? the group state of mind that drives many elections. Focusing on elections is focusing too late. By the time the election comes along, the battle is half over because the mental ground has long ago been prepared.

    jollyroger's picture

    The Deportation Squad Rules of the Game

    By jollyroger on Mon, 01/02/2017 - 10:15pm |

    Just this week in the Supreme Court was argued what may well become, in terms of practical impact on millions of lives over a very short period of time, the most consequential decision of the century, (if not back to Dred Scott).

     

    Traits of Despotism, Republican Party and Venezuela

    By NCD on Sun, 01/01/2017 - 4:19pm |

    I was reading about the collapse of the Venezuelan health system here, and noted almost all the comments were gloating right wing Hillary, Obama haters who had no grasp of how similar the methods of the totalitarian Chavez/Maduro government of Venezuela are to those of the GOP.  And how dissimilar they are to the actions of the 8 years of the Obama administration. Including his in rescuing this nation from the last Republican engineered US economic collapse in 2007-8. Obama's actions, which were unambiguously opposed by the GOP, the Party that brought on the 'great recession' on their watch.

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Netanyahu: America's Favorite Thug

    By Danny Cardwell on Sun, 01/01/2017 - 4:02pm |

    There’s been so much written about any potential influence Vladimir Putin could exert over Donald Trump that the influence Benjamin Netanyahu already has over him was largely ignored. The United Nations Security Council’s decision to call the Israeli settlements illegal, coupled with the incoming Trump administration's reaction to it, has pushed those of us still engaged in the political process back to our partisan cubbyholes on all things Israel. On Fox news, this story is being sold as President Obama’s final act of hostility against Israel: there might be some screw you aimed at Israel on the president’s part, but that doesn’t negate the principles that undergird the U.S. decision to abstain from vetoing Resolution 2334. The 4th Geneva Convention is the basis for the settlements being illegal. Our past UN vetoes have only emboldened Israel to keep building on contested lands. At the end of 2014 Israel begrudgingly slowed down the construction of settlements, but overall Israel has built more settlements during the Obama administration than during the Bush years. I’ve read articles and tweets from some very smart people who saw the UN’s decision as something to celebrate, but the reality is: the daily life of the average Palestinian and Jewish person affected by this decision is likely to get worse. 

    Obama was right on the UN

    By Flavius on Wed, 12/28/2016 - 2:23am |

     resolution condemning the planned next stage in Israel's settlement policy.

    The  choices :

    (A) support the resolution,i.e. tell Israel  the US want's it to

    stop expanding settlements

    (B)veto  the resolution i.e tell Israel  expanding settlements is OK

    (C )abstain. 

    With respect to these choices:(a) is too broad. It starts down a path which leads to the conclusion that

    there shouldn't be an Israel. We tried that in 1930. Remember?  Didn t  work.

    (b) It isn't

    (c) A safe haven.At least compared to A and B.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Boxing Day and the Laments of 2016

    By tmccarthy0 on Mon, 12/26/2016 - 12:18pm |

    Could this year have been any shittier? Prince, George Michael, Carrie Fisher's massive heart attack, Trump. PSN's stupid coffee table book and it's failure to activate politically with a Four Million member power! WTF, can 2017 be worse than this?  Increasingly that orange freak is scaring the hell out of every normal person on the face of the earth with his loose tweets about nuclear arms races, so yeah, 2017 can turn out to be so much worse. I'm sure many of you feel the same bewildering disappointment as me and millions around the world. 

    Trump:Restart Atmospheric Atom Tests-off Mar-a-Lago

    By NCD on Fri, 12/23/2016 - 1:22pm |

    Recent Trump decisions on nuclear weapons:

    The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes. @realdonaldTrump  cheeky

    acanuck's picture

    Cleric is pawn in Trump-Putin-Erdogan power game

    By acanuck on Thu, 12/22/2016 - 5:04pm |

    Lots of people will feel lots of pain once the Trump administration takes power. Perhaps the first casualty will be Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish cleric now in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

    A moderate Islamist leading a popular movement, Gülen was once allied with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They split over accusations of government corruption. Since then, Gülenism has been branded a terrorist organization, Gülen followers were accused of staging July’s failed military coup, and hundreds of thousands have been rounded up, fired or arrested. Gülen denies any involvement, but Erdogan demands he be extradited to face trial in Turkey.

    CVille Dem's picture

    Congrats to Peracles Please on Joining the Masthead!

    By CVille Dem on Wed, 12/21/2016 - 4:48pm |

    So delighted to see this addition to Dagblog's fine masthead.  I have learned a lot, and enjoyed the writing that PP regularly contributes.  

    Break a Leg, Peracles!

    WTF

    By A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 12/19/2016 - 11:26am |

    WTF

    It is believed that Russia meddled with our election. We are outraged at the very audacity [forget the hypocrisy of our outrage] of the evil upstart Putin. We have been promised by both our President and our Vice-President that the U.S. will retaliate [make an attack or assault in return for a similar attack] because Russia must learn that it cannot get away with such an outrage.

     What I have not heard any suggestion of is diplomacy.

    an interlude

    By ocean-kat on Sun, 12/18/2016 - 12:28am |

     

     

    Richard Day's picture

    THE OA

    By Richard Day on Fri, 12/16/2016 - 2:04pm |

    The OA.png

    I recently viewed a Louis CK 'stand-up' on Youtube.

    Except this 'stand-up' was not a comedy stand-up.

    He gets me every time, except he was not looking for laughs.

    WHAT THE HELL IS A STAND-UP COMEDIAN DOING A STAND-UP AND NOT SEEKING LAUGHS?

    I do not know and when I found this exposition I was given no background with regard to this riff.

    Last report on 2016

    By Flavius on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 2:34pm |

     

    Ignore the date above, I'm posting this on Dec 18.

    No doubt there'll be further changes as some supervisor in Des Moines  finds 83  votes

    behind a poll worker's ham sandwich . But these are the last numbers  I'll supply.

     You won't have Flavius to kick around anymore.

     

    Obama 2008         69 million, 499 thousand votes

    Obama  2012        65,      "     916 thou

    Hillary    2016        65       "      845   "

    Trump   2016         62      "       979     "    ,

    Bush      2004        62    million   

    The Evil that is Hillary

    By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/13/2016 - 7:11pm |

    There's a famous line in The Godfather where Brando exclaims, "how did things ever get so far?"

    Richard Day's picture

    NOAH'S ARK

    By Richard Day on Mon, 12/12/2016 - 2:34pm |

    Last night I viewed two or three hours of the National Geographic Channel that centered upon Noah's Ark.

    Okay?

    So there I saw men in their early 40's? And these men were (once again) demonstrating that there was in fact a Noah's Ark; that all wild life (except for those who thrive in the seas or the fresh lakes?) had been destroyed by the wrath of God (what the hell did a hippo ever do that transgressed the laws of God?) and so God chose Noah

    To build an Ark?

    Taxing Economic Injustice

    By HSG on Mon, 12/12/2016 - 11:49am |

    Shortly after the Presidential election, I urged progressives to focus efforts on improving circumstances for poor, working, and middle-class people in targeted localities and states. At the national level, President-elect Trump and the solidly Republican Congress will not be responsive to our concerns and do not share our values. We will have to fight rearguard actions in Washington to try to preserve what remains of the positive legacies of FDR and LBJ. Opportunities to build on them at the national level are likely to be few and far between.

    From Russia with Love: A Tsar is Born (updated)

    By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 12/10/2016 - 11:38am |

    Those surprised at Russia's annexation of Crimea during their Sochi Olympics shouldn't have been - in 2008 with the world focused the Olympics in Beijing, Russia launched a land, air & sea invasion of Georgia, 

    The Olympics themselves since Soviet times have always been a Russian showcase - extended to Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War. And some habits die hard, what with 111 Russian athletes banned from the Rio Olympics for doping (originally the whole team), and the announcement yesterday of 1000 athletes implicated in doping.

    jollyroger's picture

    Arizona: new lethal cocktail one gram dose of heroin

    By jollyroger on Fri, 12/09/2016 - 4:20pm |

     

    Beset as they are both by Big Pharma sanctions and  ongoing challenges under the cruel and unusual prohibitions of the Eighth Amendment occasioned by the failure of second line sedatives to prevent what looks to observers like excruciating pain, the advocates of capital punishment are entertaining a creative solution.

    Scott , who?

    By Flavius on Fri, 12/09/2016 - 9:45am |

    Trying to square a circle  I hope/believe  Ivanka is convinced of  global warming ,thinks it will seriously blight the lives of her children and intends to side track  Pruitt's intention  to block efforts to  ameliorate it. If he doesn't  cooperate, this time next year we may be asking "Scott, who?" .

    As the world's leading expert on the care and management of Donald Trump ,she intends to "rifle shoot" at this objective not diluting  her effectiveness by any other involvement in "ecological" concerns from cleaning the Passaic to  protecting endangered alligators.

    stillidealistic's picture

    Goodbye American Presidency

    By stillidealistic on Thu, 12/08/2016 - 6:36pm |

    Give him a chance.

    OMG. 

    Every day is a new horror. No matter how I try to shield myself from it. It follows me wherever I go. If it isn't on facebook, it's on the commentary shows I used to like to watch, or coming across my yahoo news.

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