Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

Ted Cruz didn't know that when you like something on twitter it goes under your account likes. He liked a very graphic porn video and people retweeted it for about an hour until either a social media manager told him people could see what he was choking the chicken to, or his wife yelled at him, or he searched his own name and found everyone laughing at him. That's my thought;;;

[trish]

The thought of Ted Cruz choking the chicken just put me off breakfast thank you.

[broncofan]

Hi Trish, save this for after dinner. This is the final installment of Punishing Percy.;

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...8951?cid=bitly

[broncofan]

And I guess just so I can claim this is a real political issue, Ted Cruz once argued that there was no substantive due process right for a person to "stimulate their genitals." He literally argued that the state could make the sale of sex toys illegal if it wanted to. Beyond that, the way his team has mangled the story about what happened makes it clear this was Ted and not a staffer, because they have about three different excuses already. So there is some political hypocrisy as there usually is with these cases when a Republican is caught doing something sex-related as they are the party that wants to police consensual sexual activities between adults.

[Ben in LA]

I was lucky to have been browsing Twitter when that went down. Guess it's a bonus with working late. The hilarity was phenomenal, and couldn't be replicated later on in the day. Some folks though people were porn-shaming; we were actually trolling him due to the above stated hypocrisy he has exhibited.

Fun times though...probably a little better than covfefe.

[trish]

This (satire) from the Borowitz Report:
Porn Industry Irrevocably Damaged by Association with Ted Cruz

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/boro...-with-ted-cruz

[blackchubby38]

Was wondering if anyone has been following Hillary's actions of late, including her book What Happened and Verrit? I don't know enough about either her book or the media outlet Peter Daou is starting but I question her instincts. She says she wrote the book because she is too careful in public and this was a chance for her to let her guard down. While I am sympathetic to the fact that her caution is the result of her facing many unfair attacks, her "cautious" persona made her look too calculating and inauthentic. She never seemed like she was expressing her view of anything.

I suppose what I am saying is that I respect that she has the right to vent or to keep herself in the public eye, but I'm just not really sure what the point of all of this is now except that she gets to tell her side of things...

Maybe those of us who are cringing aren't being fair...there is a sense the party wants her to go away, that she had her shot and didn't come through and that everybody neesd to move forward, but she does have a right to do what she wants. The media outlet she endorsed (verrit) looks like a disaster though.

She is basically going through the seven stages of grief and feels the need to share that with the public. I also think she is doing it as a response to the book, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign. I saw an interview with the authors awhile back and from what I can tell it does a better job at explaining why she lost the election. Instead of putting the blame on other people like Hillary seems to be doing.

Does she have the right to vent and keep herself in the public eye? Yes. But is it the right thing for the Democratic party? No. I think it would had been better if she faded into the shadows for awhile, like other people who have lost a Presidential election did. Then she could figured out the best way for her, as a private citizen, to be a champion for causes she's passionate about. Because as you said, she had her shot and its time for the party and the country to move on.

[sukumvit boy]

Yes Stavros, in the recent 2 hour long exclusive interview that Charlie Rose had with Steve Bannon ( a fragment of which bluesoul posted in #418 above ) Bannon stated repeatedly that the focus of his strategy was "Quite simply" positioning Trump as the anti establishment candidate. He understood that the electorate was ripe for something different.
I have also heard snippets of the Hillary Clinton book promotion interviews. Although somewhat interesting , I came away with the impression that she was still too close to the events to accurately assess the roots of the problems hampering the Democratic Party.

[Stavros]

Events in Washington DC in the last 10 days make one wonder what policy making is for the 45th President. Elected on a platform to enact policies on health care, immigration and tax reform, to name just three, the health care policy has failed and is in some sort of reform limbo; the tax policy goes to Congress in the next month but nobody knows what it consists of, and last night it appears the President has a dual position on illegal immigrants - the so-called 'Dreamers'- which will protect them and deport them at the same time. According to the New York Times, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi

said in a joint statement that they had a “very productive” dinner meeting with the president at the White House that focused on the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. “We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,”

Jeff Flake, the Republican from Arizona tweeted
“Kudos to @POTUS for pursuing agreement that will protect #Dreamers from deportation.”

But the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, as the New York Times puts it: has declared DACA unconstitutional and an overreach of authority.

I was going to add that Republicans are furious that 'their President' has turned to Democrats. A Republican Representative from Iowa, Steve King, tweeted: “Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair. No promise is credible.”

It could be pragmatism, or something closer to the truth: the President has no grasp of policy. None at all. A policy is a headline in a newspaper, an announcement on tv. Perhaps this is the new definition:

Mr. Trump’s zigzagging statements on the program, and his drift back toward preserving it, came after days of deeply negative news media coverage over his decision to end the program. Mr. Trump, who pays close attention to the headlines, told advisers he was bothered by the seemingly endless bad press over DACA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/u...T.nav=top-news

Politicians should be allowed to change their minds, and policy with it, a pity we can't do that in the UK. But at least we have politicians who know what policy is.

[sukumvit boy]

Steve Bannon Charlie Rose "60 Minutes" interview, "three shirts to the wind".Not even the NBC makeup team could hide those bloodshot eyes.
But really , what's with all those shirts ?
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/3444...ollywood-tape/