Tuesday Reads: I Hate 2016.
Posted: December 27, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs 48 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
Before I begin, news just broke that Carrie Fisher has died. I hate 2016.
I’ve defended President Obama for years now, but I’m disgusted with him right now. Obviously, the man has a huge ego and he’s not really much of a feminist except at at a surface level. Now he has joined Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in claiming he would have beaten Donald Trump–and not a single one of those men did the work or went through the attacks that Hillary Clinton had to deal with. U.S. News:
President Barack Obama says he is “confident” he could have beaten Donald Trump if he was on the ballot this year, prompting the president-elect to respond with an defensive denial amid a flurry of tweets sent out late Monday night.
“President Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me,” Trump wrote. “He should say that but I say NO WAY! – jobs leaving, ISIS, OCare, etc.”
Trump was responding to Obama’s interview with former aide David Axelrod, in an episode of Axelrod’s podcast The Axe Files released Monday.
In a sit-down at the White House before departing last week for his annual Christmas getaway to Hawaii, Obama told Axelrod that he did not believe Trump’s election was a repudiation of the vision of a more inclusive America Obama had tried to convey in his campaigns and as president
“In the wake of the election and Trump winning, a lot of people have suggested that somehow, it really was a fantasy,” Obama said. “What I would argue is, is that the culture actually did shift, that the majority does buy into the notion of a one America that is tolerant and diverse and open and full of energy and dynamism.”
Yes, and Hillary did win a majority of votes–about as many as Obama got in 2012; but, never mind. A man would have done better, right? WTF?! And BTW, David Axelrod tore down Hillary throughout the campaign. Surely Obama must be aware of that fact?
Everyone, including he media, is now blaming Hillary for the coming apocalypse. No one wants to deal with the media’s year-long obsession with emails or their failure to adequately investigation and report on the Russian interference in the election. Many reporters are rushing to excuse James Comey’s successful efforts to hurt Clinton shortly before election day.
Here’s an unscientific investigation by Sam Stein (who has actually been pretty friendly to Clinton): Did James Comey Cost Hillary Clinton The Election? We Asked The Late-Deciding Voters.
For months, as the election wound down to its bitter conclusion, Leonard Rainey of Louisiana struggled over which presidential candidate he’d support.
In the past, the choice would have been simple. Rainey, 33, leans Republican. He voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. But like others this cycle, he found the idea of backing GOP nominee Donald Trump repugnant, matched only by the nausea that accompanied the thought of pulling the lever for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
He entertained sitting out the election. But, as he said, “you don’t have a right to bitch if you don’t vote.” So he pored over the news in search of guidance. It became overwhelming. Each WikiLeaks revelation was a new micro-drama; every Trump debate performance an eye-opener.
“His mouth doesn’t fucking stop,” he said after the second one.
By the final week, the continuous revelations and conspiracy theories surrounding Clinton were taking a toll. Rainey had heard something about Clinton’s ties to a pedophilia ring ― a hoax that led an armed man to fire shots in a D.C.-based pizzeria. He found Clinton Foundation ties to the Saudis and Qatari government disturbing.
The night before Election Day, Rainey kept worrying about how a President Trump might navigate a complex international standoff. He woke up wondering if Clinton was the right choice. But in the end, he voted for Trump anyway ― an uninspired, rote contribution to American democracy.
“You could have put up anybody else against him,” Rainey said. “But they just picked a bad candidate.”
Well that proves it then. A life-long Republican from Louisiana thinks Clinton was a “bad candidate,” and a few other folks that Stein talked to said similar things. Stein quotes five men and one woman in his piece. Most were Republicans, and one was a Bernie bro. Case closed.
Meanwhile, instead of rehashing the election and making unprovable claims, maybe Obama should be reflecting on his failure to act when he might have been able to reduce the damage done by Putin and Comey or at least take action to punish Russia for stealing our election. He might also want to think about why he failed to take any action to prevent what looks to be genocide in Syria.
The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen: Thanks to no-drama Obama, American leadership is gone.
If Dec. 7, 1941, is the day that Franklin D. Roosevelt said “will live in infamy,” then Dec. 20, 2016, has got to be a close second. No Americans died that day as they did at Pearl Harbor, but the American Century, as Time magazine founder Henry Luce called it, came to a crashing end. Turkey, Iran and Russia met in Moscow to settle matters in the Middle East. The United States wasn’t even asked to the meeting.
Winston Churchill said in 1942 that he had not become Great Britain’s“First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” Nonetheless, by the end of the 1940s, much of the empire was gone. Churchill was an unapologetic colonialist, but he was up against liberation movements of all kinds, not to mention the antipathy of the United States to imperialist ambitions — in short, history itself. Churchill had a marvelous way with words, and greatness accompanied him like a shadow, but in certain ways he was a 19th-century man wandering, confounded, in the 20th.
Barack Obama is quite the reverse. He is a 21st-century man who never quite appreciated the lessons of the 20th. He has been all too happy to preside over the loss of American influence. Aleppo, Syria, now a pile of rubble, is where countless died — as did American influence. The Russians polished it off from the air, doing for the Syrian regime what the United States could not figure out how to do for the rebels. The city hemorrhaged civilian dead, and America, once the preeminent power in the region, did virtually nothing.
It could be that Obama was right. It could be that all along he knew that the rebels were beyond saving — although he predicted that Bashar al-Assad would be toppled — and, anyway, the United States was not going to again get into some Middle Eastern quagmire. America had twice made war in Iraq; it had lost Marines in Lebanon. Though perhaps these were just excuses to do nothing. After all, no one ever recommended putting boots on the ground in Syria. That was Obama’s straw man.
And now we are headed toward autocracy. That will be Obama’s legacy.
Here’s an interesting article by Yochi Dreazen at Vox: I’ve spent 15 years covering national security. I’ve never seen anything like the Russia hack.
National security has been the focus of virtually all of my professional life….But I’ve never covered anything quite like Russia’s hack of the Democratic National Committee’s servers and the email account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, moves designed to steal and then release information damaging to the Democratic presidential nominee.
Think about it this way: In a best-case scenario, Russian President Vladimir Putin has managed to persuade tens of millions of Americans to question the integrity of the US political system and the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s narrow win. In a worst-case scenario, the Kremlin just handed the White House to the most jarringly pro-Russian presidential candidate in American history.
Imagine I had told you, in 2013, that this would happen — that Russia would successfully hack into a political party’s servers and use the revelations to try to change the course of an American presidential election. Imagine you didn’t know which party benefited, so there was no reason to downplay the event’s horror, or shrink from its implications. How much of a freakout would you have predicted across America? What sort of response would you have expected? How angry, specifically, would you have expected Republicans — a traditionally Russo-skeptic party — to be?
And yet there may be no response. Nor is it even obvious what the response should, or would, be. Part of me thinks we should consider this to be a case of espionage (stealing the documents in the first place) paired with an unusually sophisticated propaganda effort (leaking the sexiest material slowly to dominate the news cycle in the final weeks before the election). Part of me thinks we should consider this to be an act of war, no different than if Putin had launched a cyberattack that took down the electrical grid or the banking system. And part of me thinks it’s something new entirely — a hybrid that is more than mere spying but less than an outright assault.
I’m at even more of a loss when it comes to thinking about what the US should do in response. Russia doesn’t have real elections, so there’s no Putin rival for Washington to quietly try to help win the presidency. The US could try to embarrass the Russian leader by releasing details of the tens of billions of dollars that he and his closest allies are believed to have squirreled away in a labyrinth of offshore bank accounts. Putin controls Russia’s media, though, so it’s not clear if that information would reach many Russians. Given Putin’s sky-high approval ratings, it’s not also clear if many Russians would care. And not even Russia hawks think Obama would — or should — retaliate with military force.
I’m left with a pair of depressing conclusions: Putin got the president he wanted, and he’ll likely escape without any serious retribution for his direct attack on American democracy — in fact, he’s likely to get the most pro-Russian president, and pro-Russian administration, in recent American history. His operation will have been an extraordinary success, and so the US won’t be the only Western power that Putin targets: German politicians are already warning that Russian hacking threatens their upcoming elections.
Please read the rest at Vox.
And check this out at Newsweek too: Neil Buchanan: American Democracy is on Life Support. Here’s the intro:
Is it too late to save constitutional democracy in the United States?
It is possible that there is nothing that can be done to prevent Donald Trump’s presidency from turning the U.S. into an autocratic state, completing the Republicans’ generation-long effort to make sure that only certain people are allowed to participate in our weakening republic.
Even if that is true—and no one can say with certainty, at this point in history, whether we will indeed go down that path—it is important to decide how to proceed even in the face of inevitable disaster.
Should people who believe in the rule of law act as if there is something still to be done to save the nation from political death, or should they face reality and merely try to minimize the pain as the patient dies slowly in hospice care?
Here, I will explain why it is so difficult to see a hopeful path forward after the 2016 elections. The deep problem is not merely that the Democrats will not control any branch of the federal government or most state governments, although that is obviously a huge disability.
The ultimate problem is that Trump and the Republicans have thrown off any hint of good faith, which means that Democrats who try to bargain with them might be fated to be played for suckers.
In such circumstances, Democrats could choose to simply ease people’s pain as the republic fades away. Like palliative care for the dying, strategies that would be unthinkable for other patients—such as administering high doses of painkillers—might now make sense.
One more from CNN: It’s your duty to laugh at Donald Trump, by Rob Crilly.
Time and time again he has shown himself vulnerable to mockery. Humor is Kryptonite to his thin-skinned existence.He is utterly impervious to the usual weapons of politics. Try to wound him with shame or embarrass him with public scrutiny and you may as well try to sink a duck by pouring a jug of H2O over its rear end.But we all know the size of his hands. Graydon Carter’s long-running feud with the “short-fingered vulgarian”, as he so pithily put it, recently resurfaced in the pages of Vanity Fair, where a waiter at the Trump Grill was quoted discussing the size of his bosses’ digits.Inevitably, the orange-haired bloviator responded with a humorless tirade on Twitter.Trump’s sensitivity is easily understood when you realize he is on a desperate quest to be taken seriously. Just remember the face he pulled when he sat beside Barack Obama in the Oval Office on that Thursday after an election.it was the sort of face a three-year-old exhibits when they really, really want you know they are concentrating. Or when they are trying to squeeze out a number two.What stories are you following today?
peej
Carissa
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Richard Adams died. He wrote “Watership Down.” He was 96.
I loved that book.
Wow, my old friend Marne turned me on to his book, and our kids watched his movie too.
Raw Story:
Trump adviser: Women inauguration protesters will ‘change their mind’ and ‘celebrate’ Trump
After their lobotomies.
LOL!!!
I can’t take anymore. Everyone is dying. I miss my brother and now I’m watching my mama going too. She has given up. It is beyond my capabilities to express how her illness is affecting us. My mom is very close to me and my kids.
tRump is going to start a war that will kill the rest of us off with one tweet.
Those swinging dicks can’t shut the fuck up and stop pissing all over Hillary, and let’s face it…every female that voted for her. (Especially the woman of color. Who get shit on…on a regular basis.)
Then I see crap about in-fighting among the nazi tRump supporters….whether they should salute him with the hail Hitler but only call out hail tRump.
No more.
Hugs for you. Thinking and sending wishes to help with strength to endure.
My mom is going into assisted living today. My sister and my niece have long wanted it and they are happy now. I got a call from a close friend of mom’s this morning and she was appalled. But mom seems happy about it. I’m afraid she’s making a mistake, but I can’t do anything about it.
Oh wow. They moved quickly.
There are many different types of assisted living arrangements. In some the “assistance” is having a cleaning and laundry service, and meals available if you want them. Other levels can involve extensive non-skilled care. Each state has its own regulations. Years ago I did primary-care home visits for a while, including to some assisted-living places. Some were very good.
The big question is how much of your mother’s decision this was. Moving residence is a big decision. It does seem to have been decided faster than what would normally be recommended by an impartial geriatric care clinician. I hope all goes well.
She was “gently” strong-armed IMO. She is going to have a one-bedroom apartment with an “efficiency” kitchen, meaning a microwave. She’ll have to go to communal meals. I just hope she’ll be happy, but I’m not sure how much she will like losing the independence she had at home. Time will tell.
Hoping that she doesn’t have too much conflict dealing with her new living arrangements. It reminds me so much of me and my Mom, and she lived 7 years in long term care.
Knowing what you are going through everyday BB, and your up coming living arrangements, I just hope it all works out the best for you, and for your Mom.
Hmmm, from what you said I was wondering if she was pushed into it. Going from your own house and regular kitchen to a microwave in a 1-bdrm apartment can be a shock. I hope she’s not locked into a long-term contract there. She may want more space and/or a regular kitchen. And it’s far too early to tell if she’ll be functionally limited from her ankle injury.
She isn’t going to be limited. The doctor said it would get better in 2-3 weeks.
I hope your mother adjusts well to the assisted living. My experience with friends who’ve moved to assisted living has been positive so this may be a good thing for her. I just hope you find peace with it all. You’ve been through a lot.
I hope so too. We’ll see. Unfortunately, this means I probably will never see her again. That makes me very sad. I’ve been crying a lot.
I luv you………….I cried today, as I received a photo of my Mom’s grave, filled with all the poinsettia’s I sent to decorate her gravesite. It’s awfully lonely without Mom.
Oh no! What leads you to think this? Apologies if I’m too inquisitive. Or you can always email me. I used to do a lot of older-adult practice. And personally I went through too much with my parents. If there are steps you could take to reassure yourself, do them earlier rather than later.
My mother developed dementia, and I was worn out with having been caregiver for my father for his last couple of years while also working part-time, and going to grad school part-time.
My sister had declined to help with our dad because “his time had come” and she said she had important wife and mother stuff to do, duties she took very seriously. She also did not work outside the home, her fundy wingnut controlling husband worked at a well-paid job and they paid no mortgage/rent since they made money on the sale of their former house which my parents had bought for them back when fixers in the Puget Sound area could be bought relatively cheap. I ended up doing a fair amount for mom, but she still seemed capable so I said I’d help her to manage her finances, but I wouldn’t take over doing them for her, despite being her POA for finances as well as healthcare. My sister agreed. Then 2 weeks later she had her name on my mom’s checks, manipulated mom into changing her POA, and was running my mom’s life.
She wouldn’t do the caregiving herself, in spite of not working (kids were now jr high and older), and hired caregivers for my mother who couldn’t tell the difference between 0.5mg of morphine and 5.0mg of morphine, or understand when to give my mom her prescriptions at the right time. She was taking extremely high doses of opioids then for scoliosis and other pain problems. I kept hearing inconsistent stories, odd things happened, my mother would call me crying that she wanted to kill herself, but my sister wasn’t worried. “Oh she’s got a dr’s appt in 2 wks.”
Sorry to rant. But things went from bad to worse, and to my shock I discovered that although my mother had been medically incompetent to give informed consent to medical procedures, her lawyer considered her competent. There was little I could do as I was no longer her POA. Legal competency has a very low requirements. After about 8 yrs my mother died, having endured through poor care and living situations. I never got any accounting of my mother’s assets when my sister (likely her husband) was managing them. I had to go to court to try to get the % of their estate which my parents had written in their wills I was to have, and only got about half of that. It was supposed to be 50/50 between us 2 children. Yeah, my sis and her husband are extreme Republicans. Go to a church where the wives were supposed to obey their husbands. Don’t know what happened to my poor sister — she was never very happy after a few yrs into their marriage. He sure triggered my abuser warning bells when I was around him. I’m sure they are proper little #tRump alt-rightwingnut fanatics. They’d whine about taxes and govmint, but they’d grab anything they could get away with.
Yrch. Glad that’s over, and that I have no contact with that creepy branch of my relatives.
No idea what triggered my rant — Merely the awfulness which has been happening and how you feel when persons you expect (in spite of yourself) to behave decently turn around and betray you. Country, relatives, meh.
Thanks, Luna. It sounds like you went through hell; I’m glad you shared your story.
I hope and pray that my sister won’t do what yours did, but I’m worried about it. She has stopped communicating with me. The reason I’m afraid I won’t see my mom again is that she is now in Indianapolis. It’s a 2-day drive to get there, and I wouldn’t have any place to stay while I visit her except for my niece’s house. She isn’t communicating with me either.
I don’t know what’s going on. I didn’t try to talk mom out of this or argue with them about it. There really was nothing I could do after mom agreed. My sister will be writing the checks now. My mom says she is still in control of her money, but I have no idea what my sister is up to. She is on mom’s “living trust” and will be the executor. Mom has a lot of money and wants it to be divided up among the five children. Frankly, I don’t care about the money though.
I’m so sorry BB. My parents have been dead a long time, but I cared for both of them before their deaths. Both were smokers and died in their 70’s from lung cancer. When parents live to be so old usually their children are old too. My wife’s mother is almost 93 and still living at home, but her care is constant and physically demanding. We’re doing our best to give her good care, but it’s physically and mentally a challenge. My wife is working a 24 hour weekend baylor shift, then two 12 hour weekdays a total of 48 hours a week. She is almost 65 and going to retire from the baylor at the end of March. But she and I spend nearly every spare minute with her mother. She has a sister who is 60 who lives with her mother, but she still works and isn’t able to be there during the day. So we hired a sitter that comes in for 6-8 hours a day Monday through Friday, but still there’s a lot of work left to do. We do all of the housekeeping, the laundry, much of the cooking and manage all of the medicines her mother is on. In the past 8 months her mother broke her hip, then the day after Thanksgiving she broke her ankle. She has required constant care 24-7 since last March. My wife also has a sister who is 70 and she says she is not healthy enough to help, she also won’t spend any time there. There’s also an estranged 61 year old sister who only shows up when she needs something. She’s not only begged money off my wife’s mother, she’s stolen money from her too. It got so bad a couple of years ago we had to confiscate her mother’s checkbook and what she called her “mad money”. It’s been a nightmare for us all. Now her mother is experiencing some early dementia. If she becomes too disconnected I suppose we’ll be forced into nursing home care, which none of us want to do, but because of our own physical limitations may be forced to do.
I’m saddened that you’re in this predicament with your Mom. I know how much you love her and how much you enjoyed visiting her. The thing I hate the most about being old myself is relinquishing control. But I believe you will be able to work it out so that you can see your Mom. Please take care of you.
I’m sorry. I know how helpless you feel. My older brother did that with my dad while I was living in Seattle and couldn’t stop it. My mom was more than happy to go along with it. It broke my heart. I hope your mom’s arrangement is better and that she will get frequent visitors. That was supposed to be the case with my dad but the only visitors he got were when I was in town. Their meals are regimented so I would ship my dad an order of Mrs.Fields brownies once a month so that he would have a snack in his room whenever he wanted. You might want to think about sending your mom whatever snack she enjoys. I know my dad really appreciated it. I’m really sorry, bb. I know this has added to your stress level. Hugs.
JJ. Sorry to hear you had to take her to hospital and that she’s being admitted. Hope they can ease what’s going on.
This has been a terrible year. The worst year in memory. Take care of your mom and yourself and just do the best you can.
This Storify by Anne Theriault is wonderful – she tweets about what Carrie Fisher’s character means to her. It reminded me a lot of Hillary.
So well said.
I thought that the bullshit about “not a good candidate” (even though Hillary won the popular vote) would be put in its ludicrous place once the hacking info was released. Apparently not.
I doubt Obama would have done any better running against a Putin-backed candidate, the acquiescent MSM, and the voter suppression from the eviscerated Voting Rights Act, not to mention the voting-machine irregularities.
Of course not. But he chose to turn on her. I’m done with him.
The idea that Bernie or Biden would have won is beyond insane.
Fuck Obama- what a shitty thing to say- he couldn’t contain Comey, he didn’t do anything about the Russian hacking, and now he says HE could have won!! What a fuckwad- I cannot stand him.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/311911-sanctions-against-russia-over-election-hacking-forthcoming-report
Looks like Obama will sanction Russian … Interesting to see how long it will take T-RUMP to dismantle them
Somehow I don’t think Obama’s efforts will have much of an effect on Russia. Certainly nothing that will last past the Usurper’s inauguration.
Obama is just posturing. His power to make a difference is gone and he knows it.
I am getting frightened by how surreal the political landscape is becoming. Fragments of stories meant to destroy reputations are finding their way into the minds and words of people trying to make sense of it all. People trashing Clinton are part of it and are a red flag for me. I wonder if we’ll ever be able to trust news anymore, yet we are in the position of those who only get to read propaganda…you try to read between the lines but even that is distorted more than you realize. At least that’s what I was taught when studying Germany in the Nazi era. I’ll be in WA DC for the women’s march and I won’t be there to support frump. The way Obama and Biden bragged reek of the SOS , men talking about women. I’ll never forget it. And Bernie supporters overlooking the SOS from him on this are beyond my comprehension, except to say that it is easy to be fooled and it is easy to fool yourself by overlooking what doesn’t fit what you want to believe. What I’m praying for as I light my Chanukah candles that symbolize the return of the light is that women don’t forget and don’t back down.
Return of the light … Good thoughts
Light a candle, and think of your SkyDancer friends who breathe with you on this earth, even though distant, and with you wish fervently for strength, endurance, justice, and joy.
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In just a little over 20 days Obama will be gone and he will slip into the same realm of relevancy as all other ex-presidents which is irrelevent. I’m put out with Obama for his latest absurdity, but I won’t let myself be distracted by this because that’s exactly what tRump and the GOP wants. They seek to divide us from each other, because when they do they succeed. At least Obama’s words trolled tRump to the point of basically forcing tRump into saying “no you can’t” and there’s nothing better than gettin under tRumplethinskin.
We have to forget about Biden, Obama and Bernie. None of them are going to do a goddamned thing for us. We have to organize from the grass roots up because in the end none of those men can make a difference in our lives, but we can make a difference in our own when we band together and resist tRump through peaceful civil disobedience.
Onward, Upward.
It’s hard to forget them when they won’t shut up. Especially Bernie.
I think they get some sense of power by rubbing salt in the wounds, but neither of them make a gnats ass worth of difference. Bernie FAILED and Obama is about to go on EXTENDED vacation. All I have to say to them is Bye-Bye!!!
I just don’t have anymore room for them, and I’m like the rest of you, finding a reason to live within this political system.
“and I’m like the rest of you, finding a reason to live within this political system.”
We live to fight for our rights and the rights of our children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews and to NEVER rollover to tRump and his regime. We may be old but we can STILL lift our voices to raise HELL.
I don’t think I anything useful to contribute here tonight. All of our personal wells are low. My daughter came today and took me to pick up my truck, which went in the shop after being towed again. She had already taken Hubby to stay with her because he has medical issues and I worried it wasn’t safe without transportation. I stayed home because of the pets. Since I missed xmas at her house, she brought me a dungeness crab with some lemon. I am about to scarf that down. I’ll probably feel better after that. Gifts of the best kind, I know, even if I can’t add the joy to it yet. Gifts of time and family. My grandmother died on xmas day many years ago. My mother was forever grateful that we decided to open gifts for once, on xmas eve, and my grandmother was there to share the time.
Reaching out to you, much love roofingbird. The best gift, my neighbors (a family of 6) all got out and shoveled the snow, all around the house, and the driveways. It was wonderful, to stick my head out, and say THANK YOU. The best.
Of course having my kids, and grandkids, that speaks for itself. Bet that crab was tasty!
Thanks Fannie, peace to you all.
Enjoy that Dungeness crab! Sounds like your Xmas arrangements were sensible.
Just coming back and commenting helps, I think. We can share what strength we have, talk about our fears and losses, and be here to listen and comment to each other. The older we get the more history we have and the more chance of sad things happening around the holidays. Words rarely say everything as well as we want them to, but still, it’s something.
It was awfully good and fresh! I saved some for lunch tomorrow. Nite everyone.