Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

I was promised a recession.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Idle Minds Open Thread

Idle Minds Open Thread

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Apart from snark, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  5. 5.

    Baud

    Newsmax

    Poll: Trump Close to Defeating Hillary

    I hope Trump’s troll is better than Jeb!’s.

  7. 7.

    srv

    North Carolina for the win!

    Hillary Clinton lags behind eight Republican contenders in hypothetical head to head match-ups in North Carolina, including GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

    Trump tops Clinton 45 percent to 42 percent in the latest survey from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released Wednesday.

  8. 8.

    kdaug

    All else being equal, this is the same cruise he anointed Sarah Palin on last time, no?

    Let’s count our blessings, and hope for a Shining end to Mr. Kristol.

  11. 11.

    jl

    @kdaug: If Kristol promises to do as well navigating the GOP to victory in 16 as he’s done in the past, we want him to come back. Send out Coast Guard, STAT!

    And, Kristol and his crew have been lost for years, so not sure why it deserves a drama tweet.

  12. 12.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Omnes Omnibus: I see what you did there.

    srv has been trying to act as Trump’s de facto troll, but it’s become increasingly difficult not to break character.

  18. 18.

    Anne Laurie

    @feebog:

    A “Weekly Standard” Alaskan cruise? The mind reels.

    Kdaug‘s right — they’ve done this before (and survived). On an earlier cruise, Kristol did indeed “discover” Sarah Palin, and started promoting her so heavily she went from mayor of a tiny town to VP candidate on the national ticket.

    Not sure if this means a new crop of Alaskan pols meet the ship at the dock now, or if Palin’s fate has them avoiding Bill “Always Wrong” Kristol the way any sensible person would do…

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @srv:

    Trump tops Clinton 45 percent to 42 percent in the latest survey from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released Wednesday.

    Keep up the good work. I really, really, really want Trump to be the GOP nominee. Hot damn, that would be a good thing.

    Though maybe not in the way you think it might.

  23. 23.

    PaulW

    I am 95 percent finished with this short story that’s taken me three months to pound out.

    Now all I need is $500 or so to hire a comics artist for the cover because it’s a superhero story and I need appropriate cover art… should I crowdsource this?

  24. 24.

    BGinCHI

    The role of the Professor will be played by a canned ham, there being no other suitable candidates.

  25. 25.

    catclub

    I think this part of the 14th amendment is not as irrelevant to the desires of those who oppose it than you might think.

    But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

    Somebody wants reparations.

  32. 32.

    Splitting Image

    Trump will probably lead the polls for a few more months, long enough for Kristol to change his mind and say that Trump is the likely winner (which will be good for Republicans because argle bargle fargle).

    At which point, obviously, Trump will be doomed.

  35. 35.

    Archon

    @srv

    Looks like the Dem leadership have started implementation of step 3 (show polls making Trump look electable to GOP primary voters) in their 5 step plan to have Republicans nominate Donald Trump.

    Personally I think it’s a little early for step 3, I would have stayed with step 2 for another couple months (have the left continue to laugh at Trump and his supporters which is interpreted to right-wingers as Democrats “afraid” of Trump) but I guess things are working so well that the Democrats figure they can push forward.

  40. 40.

    Gimlet

    Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Fla., has declared its store is a “Muslim-free zone” in response to the shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn.

    The store is now selling prints of a Confederate flag painted by George Zimmerman.

    Zimmerman, who was found not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, painted the Confederate flag when he heard gun store owner Andy Hallinan is being sued by a Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

    I painted the confederate flag backed by the American flag because I believe that anything can stand with the American flag behind it… – Zimmerman

    Florida Gun Supply posted a “mini-documentary” explaining the reason for selling the prints, saying that the store is fighting back against the “cultural cleansing” of American history.

    “They’re starting with the Confederate flag, but then they’re going to remove statues, rename schools, rename streets and try to cleanse the history in America,” Hallinan said

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @srv:
    My understanding was that the Democratic party had a structural advantage in electoral college votes that the Republican party would struggle to overcome — as demonstrated by Obama’s crushing electoral-vote majorities in 2008 and 2012. A 50-50 state like NC leaning Republican wouldn’t by itself really demonstrate enough of a nationwide lean towards the Republican candidate, would it?

  46. 46.

    danielx

    Instantly reminded of an old joke….

    Q: what do you call it when a boatload of Weekly Standard staffers sinks?

    A: a good start.

  48. 48.

    scav

    It’s a little known geographic fact that missing appointments causes entire sections of nearby maps to completely disappear — poof! Navteq and Google don’t like to talk about it: rush hour traffic delays scramble all their POI coordinates daily. It’s really bad in aviation: a few missed flights in ORD and the entire midwest airspace is full of Here Be Dragons.

  50. 50.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @ShadeTail:
    The bubonic plague has already made its comeback. It never actually went away. There’s only a dozen or so cases in the US per year, and almost never any deaths because it responds well to antibiotics, so you don’t hear about it. In China and India, it has been bad news for decades, at least.

  51. 51.

    Cervantes

    @Anne Laurie:

    On an earlier cruise, Kristol did indeed “discover” Sarah Palin, and started promoting her so heavily she went from mayor of a tiny town to VP candidate on the national ticket.

    Kristol may think he “discovered” Palin but, in fact, he was ambushed. She found out that they — two cruises, Weekly Standard and National Review — were stopping in Juneau and deliberately invited them to the Governor’s mansion to talk up her alleged VP credentials.

  52. 52.

    Mike J

    I saw a cruise ship pulling out of Seattle yesterday. I wonder if it was them. I think trying to ram them with a 24′ boat would end much worse for me than them.

    The orcas we saw opposite Seattle just off Blake were a treat.

  53. 53.

    srv

    @Amir Khalid: This is just the beginning

    FLORIDA: Clinton 47 – Rubio 44
    OHIO: Kasich 47 – Clinton 40
    PENNSYLVANIA: Rubio 44 – Clinton 43

    The liberals here are all counting their chickens. Trump/Rubio will put eggs on their faces.

  54. 54.

    Rich (In Name Only) in Reno

    If I were Bill, I’d be real careful about disembarking in Juneau. Grisly Mamma has a long memory, Wasilla is only 20 hours away by car, and they sell depends at the local Walgreens.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Goblue72:

    PPP’s latest findings show 6 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Nuts, while 13 percent view him as unfavorable and 81 percent are unsure. But when compared to the two main political parties’ frontrunners, he’s polling at 9 percent.

    Writing that made some reporter’s day.

  68. 68.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Roger Moore: Yes but no one knows exactly what it is. It is so tiny that for all practical purposes it –> 0.

    ETA: A Helium atom has an integer spin and so it is a boson and clearly mass of a boson can be greater than the neutrino mass which is less than that of a single electron.

  70. 70.

    goblue72

    @srv: Unfortunately for the GOP, elections aren’t team sports.

    Clinton vs Kasich – Florida – Clinton +13
    Clinton v Rubio – Ohio – Clinton +3
    Clinton v Kasich – Pennsylvania – Clinton +6

  72. 72.

    Gimlet

    @goblue72:

    FORT WORTH, Tex. (Wireless Flash) — Guests attending George
    W. Bush’s White House dinners may get a little testy if a
    chef from Fort Worth, Texas, has his way.

    It turns out President-elect Bush loves a Texas treat
    known as “calf fries,” which are nothing more than deep-fried…

    Chef Grady Spears of Fort Worth says he’s prepared the
    unusual dish for Bush when he was governor of Texas and
    claims “the plates came back pretty empty” when he served the
    fried … to “Dubya” and his wife.

  73. 73.

    Cervantes

    @Anne Laurie:

    Yeah, that’s why I made the rude remark about waiting down on the docks. Kids these days, no sense of history…

    That explains it. I did also wonder for a brief moment why you wrote that Kristol “started promoting her so heavily she went from mayor of a tiny town to VP candidate.”

  74. 74.

    feebog

    @Rich (In Name Only) in Reno:

    If I were Bill, I’d be real careful about disembarking in Juneau. Grisly Mamma has a long memory, Wasilla is only 20 hours away by car, and they sell depends at the local Walgreens.

    The next time you try driving from Juneau to Wasilla, bring your water wings. There are no roads out of Juneau that go anywhere.

  77. 77.

    Benw

    @schrodinger’s cat: it’s true that so far only the splitting between the neutrino mass squared has been measured. Currently the upper limit on direct neutrino mass is around 2 eV (for comparison the electron mass is 0.511 MeV!) However, the fact that the neutrino mass is non-zero makes a whole bunch of cool things happen like flavor oscillation and possibly charge-parity violation in leptons! So in some sense the important thing is non-zero mass, not very small mass.

    And the bosons are funny, too. You have some gauge bosons, like the gamma with an upper mass limit of 10^-18 eV, which make the neutrino look YOOGE! But you also have heavy bosons like the Higgs which are giant compared to the little neutrino. So bosons can be way bigger or smaller than the neutrino.

    You, however, were making a dick joke, so I may have gotten a little carried away here.

  80. 80.

    trollhattan

    @Gimlet: So that wasn’t actually a pretzel at all, was it? Pretzel probably sounded better than “Today, the president nearly choked on a fried ball, one of a whole plateful.”

  81. 81.

    Buffalo Rude

    Well this should be interesting. . .

    In 2013, conservative reality TV star Josh Duggar—of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting fame—was named the executive director of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group in D.C. which seeks “to champion marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society.” During that time, he also maintained a paid account on Ashley Madison, a web site created for the express purpose of cheating on your spouse.

    I don’t. . . I don’t have anything to say.

  82. 82.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Benw: Thanks for sharing the cool neutrino info!

    Yes about the bosons, I only know them from stat mech, so I know that they are an entire family of particles with zero or integral spin.

  83. 83.

    Anne Laurie

    @Roger Moore: Hell, “pols waiting at the docks for their constituents” was a hoary term when I first ran across it — if memory serves, in a Harry Golden collection (although it may have been Mencken). After a few weeks/months at sea, goes the proverb, sailors will settle for any warm — smile — with a facade of compliance…

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @Buffalo Rude:
    I’d say regardless of rejecting the Duggars’ interpretation of God, there very clearly is one and she has a great sense of humor.

  85. 85.

    ThresherK

    @catclub: Can we describe “insurrection and rebellion” as the doings of the “religious liberty” public employees who won’t issue marriage licenses?

  89. 89.

    p.a.

    Got an answering machine message saying IRS filing a lawsuit against me. The reach number is a private residence so it must be a scam, but I couldn’t reach a human on the real IRS number so I’ll have to go to the local office to be sure. Had a later message on the machine so I couldn’t *69 it.

  91. 91.

    Betty Cracker

    @p.a.: Just read about an IRS lawsuit scam here the other day. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure you’d receive a more formal notification than an answering machine message if you were really being sued, let alone by the feds.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @p.a.:
    It may have been “Iowa Old Lady” who commented on getting same at her place last night. Good to be cautious of course, but be 99% confident it’s a scam, also, too.

  93. 93.

    Roger Moore

    @p.a.:

    Got an answering machine message saying IRS filing a lawsuit against me.

    I assume that the real IRS would contact you numerous times trying to get you to pay up before bothering to file a lawsuit. Also, too, I’m pretty sure that they would contact you by mail rather than phone, and if they did contact you by phone, they would keep calling back to try to get a live person.

  94. 94.

    p.a.

    As a hint to others, one reason the reach number admitted to being a residence is that I called from my landline and *67’d to defeat their caller i.d., in case they were waiting on a callback.

  96. 96.

    Jeffro

    @Buffalo Rude: You must be kidding but oh my gosh I guess not.

    I’ve been right all along, which is kind of scary but even more exciting: Karma really is a thing, and she’s a you-know-what

  98. 98.

    gelfling545

    @p.a.: You’d get a letter outlining the delinquency issue and a pay back offer way before any law suits. Also service of process cannot, afaik, be done by phone message or email.

  99. 99.

    Bex

    @p.a.: It’s a scam. They call themselves “Internal Revenue Services” plural. If the IRS wants to talk to you they will send you a letter.

  100. 100.

    p.a.

    @Thoughtful Today:@Thoughtful Today: I remember John Anderson. He was my first presidential vote, since I knew Carter would win my state. When it comes to Bernie Buzz, I’m from Missouri. I hope he pulls the SS Clinton left in more than just her rhetoric.

  102. 102.

    Thoughtful Today

    p.a.,

    I expect Bernie to expand the Democratic membership.

    Bernie’s grassroots organization is thinking nationally:

    http://VoteForBernie.org

    ^ That lists 50 States’ individual Reddit pages & Puerto Rico.

    Bernie Meets Up:

    Bernie2016events.org

  103. 103.

    MattF

    @p.a.: It’s a scam. They tried it on me last year, “Don’t ignore this message.” I ignored it with no consequences. This is what the actual IRS says you should do.

  104. 104.

    Mike G

    If you get shipwrecked, Billy, you can play Gilligan.

    Here’s hoping The Hate Boat crowd play Uruguayan rugby team and cannibalize each other.

  106. 106.

    Thoughtful Today

    Bobbo:

    “How long before Kristol: “All hail our Dear Leader Trump!”? ”

    When Trump’s check to him clears?

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