Hey, I just met you
and this is crazy
but here’s my number
so run for president, maybe? http://t.co/on9HObWrG2
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 5, 2015
Free tip for Trump if this Clinton call becomes an issue in the debate http://t.co/O5zopGULt8
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 5, 2015
I’m glad Dave Weigel is back at the Washington Post, because with a platform in the company paper he can best get under the skin of the professional political class.
If Bill Clinton nudged Trump into the race it will go down in the Trolling Hall of Fame. http://t.co/ZJb4autvYy pic.twitter.com/azFX6Kk4Pq
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 5, 2015
Bill Clinton will forever be the president of lulz.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 5, 2015
Of course, nobody’s skin is thinner than a Bush’s…
Uh oh… Jeb Bush called Donald Trump an "asshole" and a "buffoon"
http://t.co/t4kgwMzpFe
— Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) August 6, 2015
ET
To start off a thread here is a laugh from TIMOTHY McSWEENEY’S “sturdy brown chair with tiny squeaky wheels” blog.
Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Here”: A Shakespearean Guide to the 2016 Republican Primary.
Donald Trump: … many a man hath more hair than wit.
Mike Huckabee: The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
George Pataki: [Enter Ghost]
Rick Santorum : Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass, though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.
So go read the others if you need a giggle and a break.
boatboy_srq
When you turn a family tree into a family Bush, you just can’t hide as much beneath it!
boatboy_srq
@ET: Who gets “to prove a villain”?
Betty Cracker
Well, I agree with Jeb Bush on one thing, then: “buffoon” is the perfect one-word description of Trump, “short-fingered vulgarian” being the proper longer-form description.
Thoughtcrime
You see, most people describe Trump as a buffoon, clown, and an asshole. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in the Republican Party they are a positive boon.
Elizabelle
I’ll drag this crapola forward, to help caffeinate this thread: To remind us all to stay out of Starbucks for a while:
Howard Schulz has laid another op ed in the NYTimes. It’s No Labels on steroids. Both parties have failed us. Waaaah!
Howard Schultz: America Deserves a Servant Leader
But it ain’t going to be him.
Oh Gawd.
ETA: Someone in the comments says Schultz participates in Democratic politics. I don’t know if he does or does not. But why can’t he give Democrats or President Obama credit for anything? His essay is goddamn fatuous.
I know a lot is aimed at the clown car tonight, but it’s fundamentally dishonest in its “both sides — we have no leaders!” crap. A lot of the readers remind him that Obama and the Democrats are pretty moderate; a lot of commenters see Bernie Sanders as the candidate he describes.
As with D. Brooks, the reader comments are more intelligent than the column.
Schrodinger’s Cat is right. The NYTimes op ed page has become Slate.
Bobby B.
Encouraging Trump to run is such a fiendish ploy I wish I’d thought of it. “Please proceed, Oligarch.”
Gin & Tonic
If our erstwhile friend Bob is in the market for an Apple Watch, here’s the one for him.
Peale
@Elizabelle: I don’t know who he is or why I would vote for him for any other reason than that I don’t know who he is.
I think the NYT should devote a lot of its op-ed space over the next year to unknown, but relatively well-connected nice people who decry our current state of affairs and announce that they aren’t running.
Tenar Darell
I can’t bring myself to care. Somewhere in the past few weeks, I lost interest. Really not sure where it went? Rampaging men with gun(s)? Murderous cops everywhere? White fragility making me cringe? Planned Parenthood? TPP? I pulled lots of fiction over my brain and really tried to stop paying close attention. I was just head-desking so often, it felt like the smarter thing to do. I’m not even listening to all my news podcasts anymore… Even more shocking, I’ve stopped checking my feeds (even here)! I will definitely not be watching tonight. I cannot summon either the will or even the sense of “duty-as-a-citizen” that is required. Or, “blech, I don’t wanna!”
raven
Bobby Thomson
@ET: the Christie one works better for Walker.
Bobby B.
@raven: State holiday?? What are they, Godless anti-Christians?
Elizabelle
@Peale: Howard Schultz is Chairman/CEO of Starbucks.
Elizabelle
Comedy Central is running a The Daily Show marathon until last performance.
Show that aired shortly after killing of Bin Laden on now.
hitchhiker
Jeb! should take a look at this exquisite video of the president roasting The Donald to see how it’s done. No need for vulgarity, Jeb!
God, that was a great night.
Mike in NC
@Elizabelle:
We’ve already had an idiot savant leader (JEB!’s brother).
geg6
I will forgive Bill Clinton for everything ever if he really did this. Fucking hilarious. Bubba strikes back!
geg6
@hitchhiker:
Yeah, that was one for the record books.
JPL
The latest GA Poll shows Trump with 37.4. The rest of the field is lagging behind.
Gimlet
Hurt fee fees. Maybe Republican senators could write another letter to Iran.
McConnell, speaking at a final news conference before Congress’ August recess, said Republicans have “legitimate concerns over the Iran nuclear agreement” that they will discuss respectfully in September when Congress votes on the agreement.
“What is not helpful is rhetoric like the president has been using,” McConnell said.
“The president strikes me at least so far as treating this like a political campaign,” McConnell said. “Demonize your opponents, gin up the base, get the Democrats all angry, and rally around the president.”
McConnell also said repeatedly that Obama should rein in such talk.
“Rather than this kind of crass political rhetoric, we ought to treat this issue with the dignity it deserves,” he said.
“I wish he would tone down the rhetoric, and let’s talk about the facts,” McConnell said.
McConnell also fired back at the White House position that blocking the Iran agreement would lead to war.
“That’s an absurd argument,” McConnell said. “Let me suggest that had the president and his team spent as much time trying to ratchet up the sanctions on the Iranians over the last two years as they have entering into an agreement … we’d have ended up in a better place.
“It’s not this deal versus war,” he added. “It’s either this deal, or a better deal, or more sanctions.”
Congress does not return from its break until after Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 7. The Iranian deal has to be voted on by Sept. 17.
bemused
@ET:
Love this. Thanks.
Redshift
@Elizabelle: That asshole makes $21M a year and had the gall to describe it as “serving” at Starbucks, as if it were public service. Note to Mr. Kurtz: lots of people have friends who tell them “you should run for president; you’d be better than those guys.” People who aren’t narcissistic douchebags don’t take this as something that needs to be broadcast to the nation.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Sarah Palin ruined the phrase “servant leader” for me. Forever. And I’ll believe Schultz is actually one when he converts his $150M 2014 take-home pay into $100 bills and drives around stuffing wads of cash into barista tip jars at Starbucks locations nationwide.
Francis
Question for the commentariat:
Does anyone remember seeing a chart from the last Presidential election that ranked states by the likely percentage of voters going for either candidate? So the state that was the most likely Dem was at the top and the most likely R was at the bottom, then next to the State name was the number of its electoral votes, then next to that was the cumulative total of electoral votes? So you could quickly see what states were the battlegrounds?
I thought it was a production of the 538 team but google is not helping.
Thanks.
trollhattan
Meanwhile in Californistan, forthcoming court decision will determine whether earlier decision that three Uber drivers are employees, not independent contractors, qualifies as a class action for the other 160k California Uber drivers.
I’ll be in the cheap seats with popcorn, in case y’all are looking for me.
Jeffro
Jeb! really did that? Wowzers.
trollhattan
@geg6:
No shit. If the Big Dog coaxed Trump in, it’s the brilliantest political move of the century.
But what will the NYT editorial staff say?
Yatsuno
Maine Supreme Court tells lePage to stuff it.
Thunderbird
@Elizabelle: I read that op-ed and thought “Wait, I haven’t heard anyone suggest him.” Then I read Chait’s piece where he says MoDo floated his name out there. I thought, “Oh, she’s still around? She didn’t get fired after that incredibly stupid piece about edibles in Denver?” Ugh.
scav
@ET: If only that would continue through to the actual debate close.
[Exit, pursued by a bear.]
Roger Moore
@Gimlet:
I notice that he’s only interested in talking about the facts. He isn’t actually interested in learning the facts, publicizing them, or using them to help him make his decision, but he does want to talk about them.
jl
@ET: thanks, that was a good link.
Jeb! is revealing the political talents of the ‘reasonable’ older white guy aging ungracefully into premature senescence, who reveals himself to be a massively self-entitled, resentful, bitter and dishonestly self-serving jerk who shows up at city council meetings and blows a gasket whenever everyone does not immediately defer to his confused misinformed ramblings.
If he calls Trump an a-hole, I think many people will just wonder whether Jeb! or Trump is the bigger and more insufferable one. I sense that Jeb! will have ever increasing trouble at doing well in the ‘beer with’ invisible primary.
The goofy campaign finance and media system in the US is forcing all this circus crap so early in the cycle, and I am glad the Democrats are left to do more boring and important early campaign work while the GOP eats itself up with BS in public.
I just realized that i will miss the main event debates due gym class tonight. Might be good thing to take a break and just catch up with the lowlights of it when I have time this weekend.
Gimlet
It’s back-to-school time in Kansas, and kids are starting to trickle back into school hallways. But when these students arrive at their classrooms, they may not find a teacher standing at the front.
A number of factors have recently converged to create a teacher shortage in the Sunflower State. Over the past few years, Kansas has cut back on the job protections that give teachers due process rights, created a new school funding system that a district court panel ruled unconstitutional and cut taxes so severely that some districts lacked the revenue to stay open last school year.
“I find it increasingly difficult to convince young people that education is a profession worth considering, and I have some veterans who think about leaving,” Tim Hallacy, superintendent of Silver Lake Schools said. “In the next three years I think we’ll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country
Redshift
@Francis: It was 538. Here’s one I found, though it’s not the last before the election.
Peale
@Elizabelle: Ah. So I’d expect that he’d be entertaining to watch. Probably talks 2000 wpm and looks like he hasn’t slept since his first semester of college.
Redshift
@Roger Moore: Kind of sad when quoting the Senate majority leader is nitpicking…
Elizabelle
TDS from the 2008 St. Paul GOP convention: John Oliver reporting from in front of the Larry Craig airport bathroom, talking about the cream of the Republican party. Newt Gingrich to be the guest (ack).
Peale
@Gimlet: And? The point is to get you so fed up with those poor schools that you do the honest thing and educate your own children. God never intended for people of different races and classes to mix together, or even leave their homes. That’s why he put them on different continents and invented Czech au pairs.
jl
@trollhattan: I think Uber is a slimy dishonest company and I hope they lose. I remember when they were running around misrepresenting their relationship with their supposed contractors, while at the same time running mass media recruiting commercials for drivers that were indistinguishable from from ads for full time jobs. I noted those were soon pulled, and now replaced with recruiting commercials that are more in line with their public PR campaign.
I also notice that local cab companies are going strong into Uber style aps for pick ups, and hope that puts a dent in the grifting Uber business model.
Air B&B, or however its spelled might have a place in the economy if properly regulated, but I’d like to see Uber go away.
Elizabelle
@Peale: If you like your platitudes caffeinated.
Tree With Water
@Elizabelle: Glad I’ve never heard of, much less from, this Schultz character- sounds like he’d annoy me, too.
jl
@Elizabelle: but balanced with soothing low key hipster and ‘world’ music in the background, it makes for a nice blend.
Peale
@Gimlet:
I don’t even wanna know what there is left to sanction…maybe we could have put sanctions on countries that don’t agree to sanctions?
Gimlet
@Peale:
And bastions of liberalism indoctrinating their little minds about global warming, evolution, an earth older than 6,000 years, all those horrible things our exceptional Christian government did… And did I mention “unions”?
Tripod
@jl:
It wasn’t that W was the guy you’d want to have a beer with – he was the alcoholic outside sales rep you’d get drunk with at a lame corporate sales outing. (and eventually he’s the only one doing shots.) Jeb would certainly disapprove.
Jeffro
@Gimlet: The AFT should publish an open letter to the voters/taxpayers of Kansas – quit voting for people who want to destroy your schools, and we’ll come back.
jl
@Peale: Seems to me that argument is blown away by merely noting that Iran is left alone to do as much as it can towards a bomb in the meantime. I guess they will say shows of will and resolve by US pres will somehow force the rest of the world to go along with US sanctions regime forever. Who believes that except the nutso tea peoples?
Bobby Thomson
@Gimlet: because the Daisy II ads AIPAC is running are so restrained. Fuck off, Mitch.
Tree With Water
It’s a nice story about Bill Clinton, but Donald Trump began grooming himself for tonight decades ago. Example: any and all film footage of NYC post-9/11 will hold great interest to future historians. The Yankees played the D-Backs in the World Series just weeks later, and who wasn’t to be seen in his owners box? Donald Trump, that’s who, because he was sitting directly behind the plate, in a seat sure to be framed by the center field camera shot, to insure he was seen by millions on virtually every pitch. That was on top of having created an historical record for himself. It was a two-fer. So picture Trump tonight as Gloria Swanson descending the staircase, well rehearsed, and more than ready for his close up.
Peale
@jl: Unfortunately, if you read Foreign Policy magazine, a lot of people who seem to have studied at places like Herverd and Yail believe in those fairy tales. It is the basic assumption of a huge swath of our serious foreign policy establishment that the US should just be able to dictate how other countries behave and they have degrees and have apparently spent time thinking and stuff.
Gimlet
@Jeffro:
And the same crisis awaits Indiana, Wisconsin…
GREENSBURG, Ind. – School districts across Indiana are having trouble finding people to fill open teaching positions as the number of first-time teacher licenses issued by the state has dropped by 63 percent in recent years.
The Indiana Department of Education reports the state issued 16,578 licenses to first-time teachers, including teachers with licenses in multiple subject areas, in the 2009-2010 school year. That number dropped to 6,174 for the 2013-14 school year, the most recent for which data were available, the Greensburg Daily News reported.
The dwindling pool of educators is raising alarm in some school districts as they struggle to fill open positions, especially in math, science and foreign languages.
jl
@Tree With Water: Well, geez, did Trump ever even dream of running for president before Big Dawg recruited him as a DemocRAT mole? I ask you?
More I learn about the timing and nature of this conversation, less there seems to be to it. But if Bill C gets unearned credit, I am sure he will know how best to use it politically. So, it is all good.
Peale
@jl: Also, see – you admit that there are Iranians who might think about getting a bomb. We will not be safe until all of them are dead AND so afraid of us that they are sorry for even thinking those thoughts from beyond the grave.
jl
@Peale: Given that an Iranian nuclear energy and research program long predates the Iranian revolution, and was a big selling point for the Shah’s regime of benefits of client state status, and that majority of population supports a strong nuclear energy and research program,,, that by any reasonable standard could be dual purpose if they wanted it to be, I guess stopping the effects of that dynamic would require a decade long genocidal military campaign.
But slimy pols like Cotton and Walker get on the TV and say it would take a few days of bombing and hacks on FTN and MTP just let them talk. So, go figure…
johio
I may end up hurling something at the screen. Jindal just said he’d change our tactics against ISIS by calling them bad names and enlisting Sunni allies (WTF does he think
ISIS is?) And Huckleberry Butchmeup said we should commit ground troups because if we don’t defeat them there ….. tdda yadda yadda.
My cat appears upset by my yelling at the TV.
jl
@johio:
” My cat appears upset by my yelling at the TV. ”
Your cat is loyal faithful cat concerned for your welfare. Pay it heed.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mike in NC:
Uh, what was the savant part?
The Golux
@Betty Cracker:
For a while now, I’ve imagined that if I ever ran into Bill O’Reilly, I’d ask him, “So, when you were a kid, at what point did you decide that you wanted to be a buffoon when you grew up?”
Cervantes
@Steeplejack (phone):
!
Matt McIrvin
@Francis: electoral-vote.com:
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2015/Pres/EVP_average.html
Howard Appel
Flattery, flattery, flattery. I don’t see an issue.