The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Three Week Refuge from The Purge Open Thread

    By Michael Maiello on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 3:59pm | Politics

    Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

    Try to be nice to Peter (not verified). 

    See, the thing is, Trump was playing Battleship and Pelosi was playing checkers, and you can't play Battleship without a wall, so Trump quit.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    Nah, he was just tired of winning.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 4:05pm

    Fast graphics, man.  Fast graphics.


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 4:10pm

    Fwiw, I doubt the GOP has the stomach for another shutdown in 3 weeks. There's no education in the third (fourth, fifth?) kick.

    But Trump will try the state of emergency gambit.

    PS I just googled "Trump battleship game"


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 4:17pm

    America will not perish as long as it believes in its great historic mission, The Wall! 

    @RealOrangeHairFuror


    by NCD on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 5:07pm

    Ann Coulter criticizes Trump for caving. Despite the suffering and confusion, she does not budge. This is the Republican base. Rational people should be fleeing the GOP.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-media-stars-despair-after-trump-caves-on-shutdown

     


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 5:21pm

    Pelosi to the left of me, Coulter to the right, stuck in the middle with ewe.....


    by moat on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 5:52pm

    This lamb is your lamb, this lamb is my lamb ...


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 7:02pm

    Yes, the way one word plays into another.

    NCD started so I am adding a tune.

     

     


    by moat on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 7:52pm

    I liked that.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 8:45pm

    Not just Coulter this time:

    But Coulter seems to be the most skilled at taunting him, not just the alpha male dealmaker thing by calling him a wimp, but saying he's a worse wimp than GWB. He clearly likes to fantasize he is greater than any other president and dislikes Bushes with special fervor

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 11:26pm

    Wasn't it GHWB, "right wing wimp" for raising taxes?


    by NCD on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 11:29pm

    you are correct, my bad

    Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.

    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019

    And Trump tried goofy Alpha tricks on Jeb mostly, I looked it up, called him "low energy Jeb Bush".

    Actually the Wimpy meme made me recall that recently it was pointed out how appropriate a nickname that might be for Trump.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 12:04am

    Amazing. Democrats were willing to give Trump 1.3 billion for the wall but Trump wanted 5.7 billion so he shut down the government. In the final deal he gets nothing. Greatest negotiator ever!!


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 6:17pm

    On borderlines, seeking asylum, "walking to redemption" and finding a way to a new life.


    by NCD on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 7:02pm

    It is annoying to read all the stories centered upon Trump blowing something up for the first time.
    He just keeps doing the same thing no matter what and the circumstances have changed.
    Describing it as a tactical mistake is CPR for a political entity that never actually existed.


    by moat on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 8:36pm

    New round! Madame Speaker unleashes her twitter account with #folllowthefacts:

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 11:17pm

    She's rolling a slow-build impeachment strategy.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 11:03pm

    Good point:

    There must be a video game or wrestling move that is an adequate metaphor?


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 12:14am

    p.s. not fair to leave him out, I think:


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 12:22am

    McConnell. Think McConnell.

    Note the air traffic controllers pointed to him for shutting down flights.

    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c4b8ad7e4b0e1872d43c02c


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 12:27am

    I figure McConnell met with Trump and warned him that if he didn't end the shutdown, the Senate would do it without him.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 8:24am

    I figure McConnell's starting to worry about his own skin.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 10:32am

    According to Jonathan Swan at Axios, this is more less  what happened.

    In short: Trump saw a Republican Senate poised to abandon him. Better to cave on his own terms, and in his own words, than watch both parties hang him out to dry.

    "I can tell you exactly what happened,” one Republican senator texted me. “The mood at Senate Republican lunch on Thursday resembled what the mood must've been on the Union lines at 4 pm at First Bull Run. I'm amazed only six [Republicans] voted for Schumer's bill. The message from that lunch by VP, Shahira [Knight] and Mitch [McConnell] to POTUS was, it's over. They'll be 70 votes within 48 hours."

    White House officials told me they knew their momentum was fading.

    PS I've always found Axios's narrative style totally bizarre yet oddly readable


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 11:00pm

    Interesting on Pelosi/McConnell relationship and on Pelosi thinking on Trump in this "Trump Caves" piece at Daily Beast by Sam Stein & two others:

    [....] on Friday, Pelosi said she felt optimistic that there would not be a shutdown again, owing to the likelihood that Trump will have recognized how politically damaging the current standoff had been.

    “The point was to make sure he doesn’t see this is an option that he can cavalierly use,” she explained. “So I think it makes it less likely.”

    Pelosi was also critical of Republican lawmakers for letting the situation get to its current point. In particular, she singled out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had insisted it was pointless to move any government funding measure through the Senate if Trump had not committed to signing it—including reintroducing a clean funding bill that the Senate had overwhelming backed in December.

    “I know he is a professional,” Pelosi said of McConnell. “So It is particularly painful to see him kowtowing to the president of the United States. And I said to him, ‘Do you just want to abolish the Congress or maybe just the United States Senate? Because that is effectively what you’re doing.’”

    Asked what McConnell said in response, Pelosi replied: “What does he ever say? Nothing.”[....]


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 2:33pm

    McConnell is a professional bog creature, there to con the fetus obsessed maggats while creating an anti-democratic authoritarian theocracy that loots the Treasury for the rich, cages brown children and anoints serial adulterers, liars and assorted grifters and tax evaders as Bible prophesied saviors of the race of bigots and yokels who elect them.


    by NCD on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 2:42pm

    Along the lines of it can always be worse, I read that Ginni Thomas and her group is apparently a little too kookoo for Trump

    ....according to three people with direct knowledge of the events.

    For 60 minutes Mr. Trump sat, saying little but appearing taken aback, the three people said, as the group also accused White House aides of blocking Trump supporters from getting jobs in the administration.

    It is unusual for the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice to have such a meeting with a president, and some close to Mr. Trump said it was inappropriate for Ms. Thomas to have asked to meet with the head of a different branch of government....


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/26/2019 - 9:10pm

    I just wanted to say this is an awesome comment thread! I've been out of the loop on the shutdown and this has been a more entertaining and educational summary than Colbert or Seth Meyer provide. 


    by Obey on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 5:27am

    Hi Obey, just want to say it is a pleasure to see you say somethin' instead of just lurking, appreciation in case it may have been breaking a self-control rule.  No need to respond. smiley


    by artappraiser on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 6:11am

    Hey AA - haven't been lurking much lately due to work. But I haven't got much input on the issues of the day. Maybe in future. When the election heats up and whatnot. I wanted to just show my appreciation for that unique ability of Dagblog to produce great great threads. ;)


    by Obey on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 12:17pm

    When I saw this, it made me wonder: where is Peter (unverified) and what is his take?

    Trump is a broken man. It's over for him.

    — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 25, 2019

    by artappraiser on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 6:17am

    Excerpt on the blame game, from

    [....] Kushner, who Trump jokingly says is to the “left,” pitched a broader immigration deal and had faith that he could negotiate a grand bargain in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with his discussions. He pitched a big deal to Latino groups this week and also with members of the Koch network, the people said.

    Trump, who fretted about the shutdown’s impact on the economy and his personal popularity, cast about for blame and pointed fingers at his staff — including Kushner — for failing to resolve the impasse, according to aides.

    At a meeting Wednesday with conservative groups, the president accused former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) of having “screwed him” by not securing border wall money when Republicans had the majority, according to one attendee, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He said Ryan should have gotten him money before he left but he had no juice and had “gone fishing,” according to two attendees.

    Ryan had warned the president against a shutdown and told him it would be politically disastrous, according to a person familiar with their conversations.[....]

    [....] On Thursday night, the president grew annoyed at Mick Mulvaney when the acting White House chief of staff talked with him about policy prescriptions for the next three weeks and what an eventual deal might look like, according to one person familiar with the conversation [....]

    [......Rep. Peter]  King faulted the conservative Freedom Caucus, led by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), both Trump confidants, for steering the president in the wrong direction.

    “I hope he ignores them for the next three weeks,” King said. “It’s the charge of the light brigade. It’s the valley of death" [....]


    by artappraiser on Sun, 01/27/2019 - 7:15am

    you've got to give to Pelosi that she really really got her act together after many years learning from bad reactions. This sea change in approval is amazing. To me it really says something about the value of age and experience as long as the person still has their full faculties:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 01/28/2019 - 4:48pm