May 16 Open Thread: Democratic Voters, Like NASCAR Drivers, Turn Left

Filed in National by on May 16, 2018

The Pennsylvania primaries saw many left-leaning Democrats defeat the mainstream party’s preferred candidates. Four of them were also backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. All four were women, and all won their Democratic primaries over men, including a couple of incumbents.

The reason economic populism still resonates in despite record-low unemployment is that many people hold jobs that pay too poorly to cover middle-class basics. The United Way estimates 40% of Americans fall into this category.

So much for that Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump, peacemaker. North Korea is back to rattling its nuclear-tipped saber over joint military operations between the U.S. and South Korea. Will any of the morons who suggested Trump deserved the Peace Prize take note that simply saying something will happen in the future usually isn’t enough to get it done, a rule that goes double for Trump? Highly doubtful.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released reams of testimony about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, which raised some interesting questions. For those treating this as a mystery/thriller, the most tantalizing clues involve the “cryptic” notes Paul Manafort took. My favorite of those is “illici,” which looks like he made it almost to the end of the word before he realized that maybe he shouldn’t write that one down.

Digby has your periodic reminded that while it might seem Republicans are accomplishing nothing despite complete control of Washington, neglect is destroying what they don’t wreck on purpose. She says it might never be put back together, which is of course what the GOP has been trying to do for 40 years.

I still regret the defenestration of Al Franken, but the othes shitcanned by the #metoo revolt against skeevy men aren’t much missed. That doesn’t mean they have accepted their fate, though: Many of them are trying to stage comebacks, even luffa-wielding Bill O’Reilly.

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  1. jason330 says:

    Well shit. Aside from possibly writing “Trump campaign to collude with Putin” in his notes, I don’t know how Manfort’s records could be any more excplicit.

  2. puck says:

    More #metoo overreach in the case of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. Prosecutors charged Greitens with taking an explicit photo of a woman with whom he was having an affair without her consent, and who claimed (sorta) that Greitens had abused her. But they had to drop the charges after no such photo was ever found, and the woman would not testify.

    Interestingly, the claim of abuse and the unwanted photo only became known from a voice recording of the woman secretly made and provided by her ex-husband, as she attempted to explain the affair to him. Good grief.

    Not to worry #meetoo’ers, Greitens is in fact a creep and is in plenty of other legal trouble for stuff with actual evidence.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/us/eric-greitens-missouri-governor-charges.html

  3. RSE says:

    North Korea is solely a bargaining chip. China has let Trump play with their toy during the trade negotiations, and they will snatch it back periodically during these negotiations until they are satisfied…..If Hillary were president she would be receiving the Nobel Prize the second Kim Jong-un stepped foot in South Korea…same goes Obama. Hell, he received one for just existing.

  4. Alby says:

    @RSE: Congratulations. A comment free of any actual reality. Well done.

    That is to say, you don’t know jack shit about what North Korea and China are thinking. They pay people millions of dollars to know what they’re thinking, and those people don’t know. You certainly don’t know enough about geopolitics to go around making assertions like those you made.

    As for comparing your pile of shit to the Democrats you named, you really ought not to play that game. If either of them had done one-tenth the shit Trump has done they would already be in prison.