Comments

2

Pretty sure you are not supposed to be hiring topless, kissing lap dancers for work parties, even if it is a dude wearing a dress, especially if you do not even tell anyone. HR departments really frown on that kind of stuff.

Also, one wonders the over/under on how many Americans are dumb enough to not realize that "Obstruction of Congress" is not a thing that exists, and is only in the articles to fool stupid people into thinking it is an actual crime, obstruction of justice, or contempt of congress.

One can only wonder why they did not call it "contempt of congress," since that is what they are describing, and that is actually a concept that exists. So strange.

3

The old folks home fireman stripper story is my favorite thing on the internet this morning. It's a welcome break from impeachment, or the UK election.

5

@2: You're dumb.

6

Eating beef through your empty words.

7

We can’t really generalize about the implications of foreign elections in relation to US politics. The UK went hard Con, but Canada just voted for five more years of Liberal government. There were no “Republicans desperate for moderates” articles after Trudeau’s victory.

This is just the media lying to us per the usual “Democrats in disarray” bullshit.

Also, let’s take a deep breath and remember that the Democrats won the House last year by the largest margin of victory in half a century by running on a solidly progressive platform.

In fact, they just had major state level wins in Louisiana and Kentucky, and a total wipeout of the Republican party in Virginia.

8

@4: It is quite puzzling why after months of claiming they had smoking gun evidence of bribery and obstruction of justice that they did not actually name those charges in the articles.

Seems like omitting those charges and all the evidence they have for them makes the case for impeachment weaker, but I suppose congressional procedure is just not my bailiwick.

9

Unsure what The Stranger’s recent shopping trips to sodo Grocery Outlet have been like. I think KOMO’s report matches my own shopping experiences there.

Second to last shopping attempt I had there, I bused and walked to GO but couldn’t make it through the tents along 4th Ave sidewalk. Guys in tents screamed at me to go away or leave them alone even though it is a public sidewalk. I turned around and walked back to town in 4th Ave street traffic since it was safer than being on the sidewalk. I went shopping at a more expensive place in downtown instead.

Last time I went to sodo GO I got a ride from a friend. As we drove into the parking lot, there was a circle of RVs and one camper was dragging a strand of barbed wire across the parking lot entrance with his bare hands. We GTFO and drove to Winco in Kent.

So just to make it clear, this is a very real thing happening to real people. Many of those real people can’t get a ride to the next best store to shop at like I can. KOMO ain’t trolling nobody. Last two times I tried to shop at sodo GO I was directly blocked from doing so by people living outside of it.

11

Let me know when there's a Culvers in Washington State.

12

I'm not normally a fan of New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg. She strikes me as someone who's been suckered into the Republican-friendly framing of our political problems. With her it's all partisanship, tribalism, and identity politics. But boy, she has a great column today, "Democracy Grief Is Real:"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/trump-democracy.html

Not that Time Magazine Person of the Year matters to anyone, but following the impeachment saga I think they dropped the ball by giving it to Greta Thunberg this year. The person who really deserved it was Vladimir Putin. Who would've thunk that the Grand Ol' Party would be transformed into the Putin Party?

13

In-n-out is mediocre. Why bother when you have Dick's or the Red Mill already?

14

Impeachment is a political process, not a legal conviction of a crime.

15

@12: Agree. Putin is the now the most powerful and influential person in the world. Henry Luce would have been annoyed by the selection.

@1:The law is always explicit and comprehensive, regardless if any of the scenarios it covers ever occurs.

16

@12 she seems to incriminate oligarchy but fails to point out how the entire establishment is protecting oligarchic rule, including so-called centrists.

@15 The Kochs and a half dozen plutocrats have each more influence on US policy than Putin. Enough with the stupid diversions.

17

@16: It might be fun to conflate a swarm of plutocrats with heads of state, but it's not an accurate comparison of power and influence.

18

@ 12/16,

The whole point of the corporate media—NYT, WaPo, NBC, etc,—is to launder Republican/Kremlin lies until the public believes it’s the truth. They’re the mouthpiece of the kleptocratic oligarchy, so naturally they peddle the BOTH SIDES propaganda preferred by their billionaire owners. This has been painfully obvious since the lead-up to the Iraq War.

Fear, confusion, and chaos are better for selling subscriptions and ads, so their profit motive makes them incapable of telling the truth.

“The media’s ongoing failure to report on Trump accurately was another concern I raised — reflecting both the pursuit of false balance, among other things, and a general failure to grasp the broader significance and true nature of the spreading pathocracy.​"

To accurately cover what is happening, the media would have to accept four unpleasant facts:

First, Donald Trump has a dangerous narcissistic character disorder that makes him psychologically incapable of functioning within a rules-based democratic system. In fact, as we are seeing, his character disorder compels him to dismantle that system.

Second, the Republican Party is no longer a democratic party. It too has rejected the rules and values of democracy and is pursuing a power-at-all-costs authoritarian agenda as allies with Putin’s thuggish Russian kleptocracy.

Third, and most unpleasantly perhaps, a sizable fraction of the U.S. population would be happy to live within such an authoritarian system if those they despise are ‘put in their place.’

And finally, violence and aggression are increasingly an indispensable means for the alliance between Trump, the GOP/Putin’s Russia, and core Trump supporters to achieve their goals.

Traditional media practices simply aren’t suited to reporting what’s been happening right before its eyes.”

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/01/impeachment-as-a-struggle-to-save-democracy-from-the-pathological-cult-of-donald-trump/

20

More than conservative success it is the labor failure in the UK. A college professor lecturer style leader who can’t connect with the masses, and an inability as well as lack of desire to take a clear position on brexit and cracking down on incoherent anti-Jewish and anti-Israel statements made by mp’s and nominees.
It’s far from over as how this election will play on the ground. Scotland may opt to leave and north/republic of Ireland relations may sour as a result of borders and tariffs.

The person inviting the drag performer to the party should be fired, and the person inviting the firefighter stripper to the to the nursing home could have been fired if the genders were flipped.

21

RE: In-n-Out burger

Most overrated fast food joint ever.

They're fine. I like their burgers. And they're cheap. But there's really nothing special about them. They're just another burger joint in a sea of burger joints, better than some, worse than others, but all in all just astoundingly average. The bizarre cult of personality behind them is puzzling. My personal hypothesis is that people in that region ate at them a lot because they're so cheap compared to other similar joints. Those childhood/teenage memories have created a nostalgia for something that isn't as good as they think it is. I LOVED the cartoon Robotech when I was a kid. Loved it. Best cartoon ever. When it appeared on Netflix I was giddy and started watching in anticipation. Short story: What a letdown. Not anywhere near as good as I remember it.

22

All-around fabulous comment by CMDwannabe @20, on all points.

Original Andrew @18, you seem to take the essence of a good point and then go way over the top, to the point where I feel like saying, "Even Noam Chomsky would think you're a nutcase." Just, suffice it to say, we can blame the media only so much for Trumpism, even with the perverse incentive of clicks and ratings and subscriptions.

23

You know you're white when you're willing to vote for Hillary Clinton even though the bitch voted to murder 100,000 Iraqis. Because Iraqis aren't really people if the Democrats vote to bomb them.

The Democrats are a white supremacist party. We can have two white supremacist parties, ya dumb asses.

25

P.Terry's is unfuckwithable. And Checkers.

You people are why the richest country in the America has skyrocketing poverty and homeless. You always blame the victim, instead of the people incentivizing them towards those choices for profit. Now you will let Trump have no oversight and only let the foreign hackers listen to his calls on unsecured phones, instead of our national security career professionals. Your stupidity and duckingspeaking infidelity to this nation is so heinous and backwards that there is no way you could have been raised in this country if you have those values. You are not truly a citizen, and you should be deported for squandering the epic privilege that millions die each year trying to attain. Go fuck yourselves sideways you inept fuckwits.

26

@22
When a demagogue manages to suck all the oxygen out of the dialectic without ANY critical voices, like Hair Furor did on the campaign trail and for a large percentage of time since then, it's not a law of nature; it's because of specific decisions by specific parties, chief among them, the media.

27

I think @23 and @25 are examples of why we can't have nice things--like sane, non-sockpuppet comment threads on news stories.

28

@27

That's Señor Data to you, chum.

A merited ban would be respected, not one administered on a technicality because ProudConservative206 marked my posts as spam too many times.

29

@24: Neither have I. Apparently, it's their sauce.

https://youtu.be/4EaB709_tdg

30

In-and-out is way overrated as is, I guess, fast food generally.

I was in Las Vegas recently for a conference and we ventured off the strip to go to a tiki bar. There was a Wendy's right across the street and a couple of the conference goers were oohing and aahing about it like it was a rare find.

30

I'm pissed. And if you're not, you're a coward or an idiot, or both.

31

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefh7W1nVo4

And 1 and done.

32

@ 22,

Sure, so it’s just a coincidence then how the NYT, for example, uncritically parroted all of the Bush/Cheney lies that got us into the Iraq War, or more recently ignored Tr666p’s lifelong crime spree to focus endlessly on Hillary’s emails, which turned out to be another Republican distortion/distraction?
How they’re now warning Democrats not to nominate anyone who might actually deliver on Democratic policies because they’re too far left, despite those same policies being what the majority of Americans say they want?
Or how they’ve ignored the Republican party’s open embrace of fascist tactics because BOTH SIDES?

Granted, these people have exchanged truth for access and are totally lacking in any moral courage, but if you have another explanation for the media’s refusal to honestly confront the danger we’re facing from a mentally ill, racist, wannabe dictator’s attack on our nation’s very foundations, I’d love to hear it.
Are they all just incompetent?
Either way, I doubt this stenographic form of journalism will survive after the next national crisis, since they’ve squandered their credibility over the last two decades.

33

I feel devastated for the UK. What were they thinking, ecstatically electing a mini Trump?
@4: Take off that ridiculous MAGA cap before your water balloon of a brain leaves a puddle in the hall. See pat L's comment (@14) and learn something.
@14 pat L: Spot on as usual..Bravo.

34

Just to add to these comment fuckeries... here, have some hipster ipsum:

Farm-to-table ultricies ornare Austin nulla vitae bicycle pharetra odio artisan molestie integer vinyl molestie vivamus. Vegan leo fusce Austin at non Toms ut sapien before they sold out ligula justo vinyl ornare malesuada tofu amet et hoodie. Molestie duis VHS lectus undefined vinyl undefined adipiscing skateboard urna porta tofu undefined lectus before they sold out adipiscing. Maecenas tofu tempus maecenas hoodie pharetra sed hoodie gravida lectus DIY nam rutrum craft beer enim mattis keytar auctor. Urna foodie porttitor fusce San Francisco quisque ultricies noise-rock cursus leo 8-bit malesuada rutrum before they sold out quisque proin artisan congue vivamus organic. Lorem magna laserdisc massa congue foodie nibh nam bahn mi cursus pharetra vim et proin hoodie ornare lectus keytar curabitur. Sem VHS tempus arcu viral fusce enim viral maecenas vivamus hoodie tellus metus Brooklyn pellentesque pharetra. Vinyl arcu cursus craft beer eros massa +1 magna in vegan sit pharetra +1 metus massa organic at. At tattoo nibh vitae Brooklyn ultricies justo biodiesel porttitor in wire-rimmed glasses ipsum ut PBR leo et.

35

Eagle: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUUUCK

36

@18: "The whole point of the corporate media—NYT, WaPo, NBC, etc,—is to launder Republican/Kremlin lies until the public believes it’s the truth."

That is true for Fox News Channel these days, but Peter Baker (NYT), Phillip Rucker (WaPo), Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) and their colleagues would seriously take issue with that.

37

Exciting that the will of the British people from three years ago will be finally put into play. Yesterday's vote was clearly presented by the Conservatives as a second referendum and the votes clearly indicated (again) to leave the EU.

Spoiler...it won't be the end of the EU or Great Britain

38

I'm slightly confused because Beyonce Black St. James is a woman, and the linked article doesn't mention anything about her being a drag performer.

In any case, it sounds like a hell of a conference!

39

@36
Rule, meet exceptions.

40

I've eaten at In-N-Out in California. Just another chain fast food burger (urp!). I think if you're not California born or bred, it doesn't have the cult-like mystique that makes its burgers seem better than they actually are. It's more about being homesick than hungry.

IMHO - While better than McDonald's or Burger King, not as good as almost any independent drive-in burger joint in the greater Seattle area.

41

@24, 29,

Five guys' burgers are slightly better, but overpriced. Some simple googling in Hollywood, CA showed about $9 for a 5 guys cheeseburger and about $2.50 for an in-n-out cheeseburger, so in a way, it's hard to compare the two.

5 guys has a lot of free optional toppings you can add, which is a plus, and something in-n-out doesn't have. There's a couple extras in-n-out'll do but nothing compared to 5g. The fries suck at both places, in my opinion.

If you're poor and must have a fast food burger, in-n-out is the best of the cheap ones, definitely better than mcdonalds, wendys, etc. If you don't eat fast food much, or are willing to splurge, 5 guys is undoubtedly above in-n-out. Then again, you can get a $9 burger at a semi-decent sit-down restaurant which will almost certainly be better than 5g... they're still fast food. If you're going to do a fast food burger, I feel Culvers and Smashburger are both better AND cheaper than 5 guys. Don't know if either are in Seattle though.

42

Black Agenda Report is REAL journalism. Unlike the Stranger, it doesn't leave the aftertaste of Obama's assh-le in your mouth.

​​​​​​​The Issue-Less Impeachment: The Corporate Democrats Stand for Nothing, So They Impeach for Nothing

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor 12 Dec 2019

The corporate Democrats are effectively exonerating themselves and their Republican brethren of the full spectrum of lawlessness that is everyday politics in the belly of the racist, imperial beast.

“The Democrats have used the vile, childishly compulsive and overtly racist Trump as a straw man ever since he announced for the 2016 presidential race.”

The impeachment of Donald Trump has nothing to do with social justice at home and abroad, global environmental stability, or the rule of law anywhere on the planet. Rather, the corporate Democrats have methodically narrowed the scope of the indictment to exclude all the actual crimes of this president against humanity, peace, the environment and the rule of law – for the obvious reason that both corporate parties and all modern U.S. presidents are collectively and individually guilty. In limiting the indictment to Trump’s attempted political extortion of Ukraine for the purpose of influencing a U.S. election – a laughable charge, since the Kiev regime is the creature of the U.S. (Democratic) engineered overthrow of the previous, elected Ukraine government – the Democrats are effectively exonerating themselves and their Republican brethren of the full spectrum of lawlessness that is everyday politics in the belly of the racist, imperial beast.

Trump will be put in the dock for a (relatively) minor offense as a kind of purgative of the whole corporate system’s rotten innards. It’s like indicting the mass-murdering, criminal war-waging South African apartheid regime for gerrymandering elections in which Blacks, by law, could not vote. The cited offense is meaningless, and all the rest is forgiven.

“Trump will be put in the dock for a (relatively) minor offense as a kind of purgative of the whole corporate system’s rotten innards.”

The corporate Democrats have used the vile, childishly compulsive and overtly racist Trump as a straw man ever since he announced for the 2016 presidential race. They desperately needed an opponent as personally “deplorable” as The Donald, to make themselves appear “progressive” by comparison. When you’re running against The Devil, simply not being Lucifer is enough. With Trump as her opponent, Hillary Clinton could campaign on a platform of – not much of anything. The Democrats reasoned that, given a choice between the status quo (endless austerity and war) and rule by a dangerously unpredictable, race-baiting clown, the people would opt for the status quo. It was a miscalculation.

Thanks to Wikileaks (whose founder, Julian Assange, languishes in prison for revealing mega-crimes of the United States under both parties) we know that the Democratic National Committee urged its operatives and friendly media to encourage Trump’s quest for the nomination. It worked like a charm, or a curse. The Age of Trump, as defined by who dominates the corporate airwaves, began long before the Orange Con Man seized control of half of the duopoly electoral system. By the time Trump squeezed out an Electoral College victory over the Democrats, corporate media had awarded him $5 billion in free air time – more than his Republican opponents, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, combined. The Democrats should have been more careful about what to wish for.

“They desperately needed an opponent as personally ‘deplorable’ as The Donald, to make themselves appear ‘progressive’ by comparison.”

Having inflicted Trump on the nation and the world, the Democrats, through Uberlord Hillary Clinton, blamed it on The Russians and Putin’s “assets” within the U.S. polity -- meaning Black Agenda Report and other left-wing web sites slandered by the Washington Post and its otherwise anonymous source, Prop-Or-Not . But, despite their surprise loss at the polls, the Democrats were still in need of Trump as a straw man. During the course of the 2016 campaign most of the ruling class and their media had crowded into Hillary Clinton’s big fat tent -- along with the scariest denizens of the national security state -- in panic at the prospect of the unpredictable Trump at the helm of American Empire. Clinton’s defeat became an opportunity to purge the U.S. political conversation of meddlesome Left voices and to reclaim the political narrative for American Exceptionalism – an imperial version of white supremacy that is versatile enough to accommodate a nominally Black president.

With the Russiagate-endorsing CIA as a public partner, the Democrats became the premier Party of War, while Trump solidified the GOP’s longtime status as the White Man’s Party – a true Devil’s Duopoly, within whose sulphuric confines Black voters feel little choice but to huddle with the less overtly racist of the Beelzebubs (even when “less racist” means Joe Biden, the mass incarcerator and friend of Dixiecrats). Trump still gets more air time than anybody else, or any issue – because the Democrats and the corporate media have made him the sole issue of public discourse, along with the Russians. The demonization of foreign enemies has come home to roost. The U.S. ruling class is split, creating a crisis of legitimacy in the U.S. political order for all the world to see, but which is blamed on the Russians, in furtherance of endless war and to continue the purge of the Left.

“The demonization of enemies has come home to roost.”

It is a bizarre impeachment, nothing like the attempt to rid the nation of Andrew Johnson, after the Civil War. Johnson was a racist Democrat who was unalterably opposed to Black political equality through Radical Reconstruction of the defeated Confederacy. His successful impeachment might have strangled Jim Crow in its cradle. The odious and ridiculous Donald Trump is highly unlikely to be removed by the Senate, but the Democrats’ issue-less impeachment charade is yet another opportunity to extend Trump’s usefulness as straw man, with Democrats hoping once again that this will be a winning electoral strategy. But even if Trump is reelected, he will still be the corporate Democrats’ straw man, whose very presence is used to drown out demands for an end to constant warfare and the Race to the Bottom.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

43

@39: Okay, then search YouTube for a clip to make your point from some other non-FNC news broadcast or opinion panel. You're bound to find one, right?

44

@OA: That salon article in @18 is a good one.

Never doubt and give up your passions, but (and I take this advice for myself) avoid slipping into over generalizations and hyperbole. Your arguments may be already sound.

46

@1 asks the big question here; why does the possibility to authorize sexual contact with all or part of a corpse even exist?

The next question is, why was the body cam video even viewed in the first place? Did the necrophiliac cop brag about it or something?

48

Hey Nathalie: A 'lil request. Please don't rickroll us to Fox "news" again. Ever. For any reason.

49

@25 poverty is on a massive nosedive. It's just now people have the internet on their cell phones.


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