Re: Very

1

Googling his name, one of the first things to come up was this tweet:

Stephen Miller was that guy in your American history class who said, "actually, the Civil War was about agriculture."


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 11:11 AM
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Twitter is on top of the Stephen Miller insults.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 11:13 AM
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Based on the profiles I've read, it sounds like he became a real shithead once he started high school, and has only gotten worse.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 11:14 AM
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A while back I read someone explaining the recent slew of M/il/o Yia/nno/pou/los worshiping young reactionaries to a person who didn't really follow politics:

"Remember that asshole in college who was always 'just playing devil's advocate' about slavery or eugenics or women's suffrage or whatever? Picture an entire movement composed of that guy."

It sounds like Miller fits right in.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 11:32 AM
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2 Personal fave. This is good too.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 12:01 PM
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And this.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 12:13 PM
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Jesus. Miller's rhetoric is pretty stunning. From memory:

"The president's authority [...] will not be questioned"

Actually, that's the only one I can remember at the moment, but there were a number of turns of phrase that were just screamingly authoritarian (or autocratic, take your pick).

I admit I couldn't help but think that he'd make a better Press Secretary for Trump than Sean Spicer. But that would take too much time away from his work as Darth Vader -- or maybe it's the Emperor of the dark side of the Force. Vader was just a foot soldier.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 12:34 PM
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Always there are two. A master, and an apprentice.


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 12:59 PM
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9

Digby has the full remark:

Dickerson [on Face the Nation this morning]: What have you all learned from this experience with the executive order?
Miller: Well, I think that it's been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government ...The end result of this, though is that our opponents, the media, and THEWHOLE WORLD will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that THE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT to protect our country are very substantial and WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED.

Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 1:00 PM
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I know that I'm a bore on this topic, but we have got to stop treating the quadrennial College Republican drones like they're reincarnations of Reinhard Heydrich. If we all met them in college, we should know that their goddamned table talk is just the "Snickers Really Satisfies and Makes You Irresistible to the Babes" of conservatism.

Something College Democrats mumble young speechwriters cough I don't care if you go to Starbucks to draft speeches mumble how's that screenplay coming by the way cough.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 1:30 PM
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I know that I'm a bore on this topic, but we have got to stop treating the quadrennial College Republican drones like they're reincarnations of Reinhard Heydrich. If we all met them in college, we should know that their goddamned table talk is just the "Snickers Really Satisfies and Makes You Irresistible to the Babes" of conservatism.

Something College Democrats mumble young speechwriters cough I don't care if you go to Starbucks to draft speeches mumble how's that screenplay coming by the way cough.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 1:39 PM
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Flip, your average college Republican doesn't go on to this level of influence over an American president.

So what is this on your part? La la la, I can't hear them?


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 1:42 PM
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I have a FB friend who went to High School with Miller. He recently posted an article about him with a comment like "now you all can get to know the worst person in my high school!"


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 2:01 PM
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14

It's very strange to me that so many people watched movies in the 80s and identified with the villains. But clearly that's what happened.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:17 PM
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Or, I guess, that people who wrote 80s movies had fundamental insights into human shittiness.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:27 PM
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Well, that's John Hughes for you


Posted by: soup biscuit | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:30 PM
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"Write what you know"?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:33 PM
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14: We knew it was happening at the time. Gordon Gekko was the give away.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:40 PM
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I maintain that he was more of an anti-hero.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:41 PM
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Was there Gekkoism outside the Anglosphere?


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:51 PM
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Honestly, 80s movies weren't really very good at anything outside of the Anglosphere. Especially Asians.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 5:56 PM
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Because I feel increasingly that the whole 1979+ swing to ever-increasing shittiness was radically underdetermined (to channel the ghost of bob's blockquotes).


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 6:17 PM
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23

If you are downstream of the Oroville Dam get your ass off of the internet and out of the Feather River floodplain NOW.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 6:28 PM
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23: More of that to come I fear, especially if the spring gets warm in a hurry. Lot of snow in the mountain states this year, and northern CA had the most.

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/snotelanom/basinswe.html


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 02-12-17 7:14 PM
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Miller also says this sort of thing, which contrives to undermine everybody concerned.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 02-13-17 6:46 AM
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I know we can't rely on anyone else saving our asses, but I'm really starting to doubt that these shitheads can actually pull off what they want to do. The apparent revolt of the spies (hiding secrets from Trump because he won't care and his aides will just leak them to Putin!) gives me a sliver of hope that it will become recognized among the intelligence community that elected Republicans are horrible people with zero patriotism, and that they'll stop acting as though they're the party of national security any more.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 02-13-17 3:43 PM
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26: There are increasing amounts of that sort of thing. At the state level, the Iowa Republican party is trying to pass a law outlawing public sector unions -- but exempting those involved in public safety, i.e. cops and firefighters -- and the latter are saying no fucking way, we can tell we're next.

It's remarkable the number of people who ordinarily turn a blind eye toward Republican/conservative policies who are actually noticing now that they're problematic, and that they can put up a fuss about it. I mused earlier today that Trump may actually have done a service in activating those (on the conservative side) who might otherwise assume they have no power, no voice. After all, their voices/power elected Trump!


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-13-17 6:09 PM
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Anyway, yeah, on the federal level, Trump and his spokespeople were so adamant that he's hiring the best and the brightest, 'cause he's a businessman who knows what's what.

As a sidebar: I'm sort of assuming that Trump and his people are deliberately throwing Flynn under the bus. Just as they're making a show of great concern on the ethics front over Kellyanne Conway's shilling for Ivanka's clothing line. It's to demonstrate that they ARE TOO caring about ethics violation, you betcha.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-13-17 6:13 PM
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