Trump protests planned in Pittsburgh today but the best one is in this yinzers yard: https://t.co/PlGvNrvwvR pic.twitter.com/cYwDvtA8kH
— SalenaZito (@SalenaZitoTrib) April 13, 2016
Despite all forebodings, it looks like the biggest misfire at today’s rally came from Trump’s mouth, per SB*Nation:
Donald Trump was either trying to say something that didn’t come out quite right or was very misinformed when he asked a crowd in Pittsburgh “How’s Joe Paterno?” Paterno, of course, died in 2012. Trump has tweeted about Paterno before and claims to have known him personally, making the comment on Wednesday even more odd…
Some local commuters might’ve been feeling slightly murderous, though, according to USA Today:
… Hundreds of demonstrators awaited Trump backers outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, dancing and shouting epithets about the presidential hopeful. At the height of the chaos, police shoved and Trump backers lingered for confrontations.
A drum pounded, signs waved and megaphones blared near an exit for the rally, which drew thousands of attendees. Trump backers and protesters shouted as each other in some areas. In others, the demonstration had an almost jubilant flair, with protesters dancing as they chanted: “Hey hey, ho ho, racist bigots have to go,” or “F*** Donald Trump.”
The timing of the Trump rally could not have been worse for downtown traffic: A Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game and Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game were also underway…
Inside, the Trump rally had been among the least lively of his campaign. One protester disrupted Trump’s downtown event, held just under two weeks before the state’s Republican primary. Several anti-Trump activists stood silently inside the convention hall exit with their fists raised in the air…
redshirt
I sure hope there was no gun violence.
I’m sorta OK with fist violence.
Arm The Homeless
4 days on Twitter and I have 4 followers and 2 neonazis who keep wanting to send me pictures of the Holocaust. On the upside John responded once to me, so I suppose my life is complete.
Showerthought: I think after he retires, Bryant should start a site to send automated hate-mail to people you don’t like.
Call it “Kobe Beefs”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The best part was Trump prefacing his Paterno remarks by saying “I know a lot about Pennsylvania”
Paterno, the late famed head football coach at Penn State University, came under fire for his alleged role in covering up the serial child rapes of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky was convicted and sentenced to 30-60 years in prison.
Oooof.
This is the kind of cutting edge, insider, on-the-ball knowledge you would receive at Trump University.
Arm The Homeless
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I’m sure tRump has polling showing white rural Pennsyltuckians think Paterno got a raw deal
Craigo
@Arm The Homeless: They do.
redshirt
@Arm The Homeless: Damn right he did! (They think without a doubt in Pennseltucky.)
Jerzy Russian
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: That quoted sentence is got to be the dumbest thing he could have possibly said while in Pennsylvania. I feel bad for all of the Onion writers who now have to collect unemployment.
redshirt
@Jerzy Russian: So he gets a plus 3-5% bounce, right?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Arm The Homeless: Oh they do. The whites staged a mass riot when he was fired. (photo)
Arm The Homeless
@Craigo:
Bitter clinging God Guns Constitushun and Scrapple Salad
Mai.naem.mobile
Nothing to do with Trumpster but PA related. Is there a reason why the establishment Dems are supporting McGinty and not Sestak? I know Sestak lost in ’10 but that was the teabagger wave election and he got pretty close.
redshirt
@Mai.naem.mobile: Reminds too many Gen Xers of Sleestaks and thus even otherwise loyal Dems don’t vote for him.
Jerzy Russian
@redshirt: Probably closer to 10%.
EconWatcher
Say what you will about Trump, he’s reshaping modern American communication. How often now do you see a reference to something and a one-word rebuttal, like “Sad!” It started out as irony, but I swear I see it everywhere now.
He’s a genius, I tell you. He’s burrowing himself into our subconscious.
MikeBoyScout
This yinzer smiled at the pic of those yardsigns
redshirt
@EconWatcher: He’s been around for a long time too. I’ve got a Spy Magazine book with me right now from the actual 1980’s and in it they’re making fun of Donald Trump. Like it could be today.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Meanwhile Sanders held a not-ready-for-prime-time rally and reminded NYC residents how much he hated New York:
It’s great to back to the hell-hole we left 57 years ago!
Then it got worse – yeah, worse:
Just like Ivanka and Donald Jr.
Then it they went to full meltdown when Sanders surrogate Paul Sing opened the rally saying:
adding:
Song apologized, saying he didn’t mean Clinton when he called Democrats “whores”.
Now, who would think that?
Craigo
@Mai.naem.mobile: PA Dems have been trying to get McGinty to run statewide for well over a decade, well before they even knew who Sestak was.
Cacti
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Just more of that “issues-based” Bernie-style campaigning.
Vote Bernie, because Clinton is an unqualified whore.
Jerzy Russian
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Mr. Sing’s comments are almost as remarkable as Mr. Trump’s comments about Mr. Paterno. I am left speechless.
Major Major Major Major
Ugh, fuck my life. What a day.
Jerzy Russian
@Major Major Major Major: I recall you had some kind of interview today. I gather it did not go so well?
Major Major Major Major
@Jerzy Russian: I can never tell with job interviews. I just overextended myself in basically every emotional direction possible and now I’m just basically too exhausted to nip off and shoot myself, as it were.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: Focus on the here and now. Breath.
opiejeanne
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Once we got past not accepting Dr Song’s lame non-apology, as well as our initial anger, some of us have taken new twitter names based on his remarks. I am Corporate Trollop, a friend is Dem Floozy, and there’s a Corporate Gigolo running around and at least one temporarily using Dem Whore.
Major Major Major Major
@redshirt: I mean, I’m fine, I just feel awful and I don’t even know why. I sort of know why. I guess I know exactly why, and I totally knew this would happen but convinced myself to do it anyway.
(This statement intentionally left vague.) Live and learn.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
So to register to vote in New York you have to fill out a very easy 1 page form.
It asks: are you a citizen, are you over 18, your name, birth date, address, if you voted before, your social security number, and party affiliation. That’s it. Child’s play. Easier than ordering pizza online.
Yet Ivanka Trump says she failed to register to vote for her dad “because of the state’s onerous rules.”
The revolutionaries attending tonight’s Sanders rally agreed.
dogwood
@Mai.naem.mobile:
If I remember correctly, it might be kinda personal with Sestek. People who worked for him couldn’t stand him.
Frankensteinbeck
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I am very leery of the guilt by association in the term ‘surrogates’ and how freely it is thrown around – but when you ask someone to get on stage with you at a rally, you own what they say.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: But we so often don’t.
Anne Laurie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Deadlines! Deadlines are for the little people…
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Pay equity:
Of Clinton’s highest-paid employees, six are male and four are female.
The People’s Revolution has no need for women.
Major Major Major Major
@redshirt: I just wanna bang my head against the wall until the stupid comes out. Ugh. I feel like I’m fifteen. Thanks for reading, whoever’s out there, by the way.
Gex
@Major Major Major Major: I’m reading. I’m just hoping the time between now and when you aren’t feeling so lousy passes quickly for you. Sometimes when I’m feeling really bad I try to remind myself it’s a matter of time before I will feel differently.
? Martin
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that in order to switch party registration, you need to record that one year ahead of the election. That indicates that his kids aren’t registered Republicans and since NY has a closed primary, they needed to have switched parties way back before Trump announced.
NY is one of the most hostile states to party switchers. And I have to agree with her, but for maybe different reasons. I think the very idea of primaries which virtually guarantee a two party system are a big part of our political dysfunction. NYs 1 year party switch period is a mechanism the parties use to further enforce this system. I think its bullshit. I do not believe it is in the state’s interest to regulate what party a person belongs to or how they can participate in the political system. It’s undemocratic from a different angle – by restricting viable alternate political structures from forming.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Frankensteinbeck: I understand, but usually there is a high degree of scrutiny of a presidential campaign. I remember back in 2008 Samantha Power called Clinton a monster in a off-the-record interview and she was fired right on the spot. No drama Obama was just that.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: That’s dumb.
Major Major Major Major
@Gex: I’m just overwhelmed. Pulled the ‘ol “somebody talk to me” fire alarm and now I have like three people texting me plus here so at least now I’m overwhelmed with people who wanna help :) ?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@? Martin: The deadline to switch parties was October 9th. Because of Trump, the deadline issue was actually in local new york papers. And Ivanka is married to someone who’s family owns a local NYC paper.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
For those who have read Becoming Phoebe, I’m posting some stuff that didn’t make the final cut to be included in the book. It starts with the post “20 Questions with Abby Forrest”.
Aqualad08
OK, just to clear up the New York registration questions… if you were not registered, the deadline to register (and choose your affiliation at that time) was March 25. If you were already registered and wanted to change your party, you had to do so by October 9, 2015 and it would be changed by the BOE after the general election.
I’m a Hillary Whore and even I think that sucks…
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Don’t beat yourself up too much. Everyone has those days when you reach the end and wonder what the fuck was I thinking? Usually they don’t have much consequence – missed opportunity more than anything else. Presumably nobody got hurt and there isn’t a summons with your name on it, or anything like that. But missed opportunities happen – new opportunities follow.
For example, you probably didn’t make what may turn out to be an $8M taxpayer mistake today. And I’m not worth $8M to my employer (I don’t think anyone is, TBH), so I’m panicking a little. I may be falling on my sword in two weeks when I find out exactly how badly I may have screwed up.
Gex
@? Martin: Yikes.
Hoping for a good outcome for you.
redshirt
@? Martin: Should you mention that?
? Martin
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Doesn’t matter.
Look, every anti-abortion measure in this country and every voter discrimination law in this country centers around increasing the transactional cost for the activity – waiting periods, ID, forms, registrations, and so on. Every other thing in our world is focused on reducing transactional costs because we recognize that transactional costs are terrible things – they waste money and time, and discriminate against people (for example, ATM fees are merely regressive taxes against poor people).
It doesn’t matter how well informed they should have been, the rules are designed to discriminate and the rules are wrong. Sure, it’s embarrassing and they’ll be punished by not being able to vote in the race they want, but I won’t defend either the law or criticize people that are the victim of a discriminatory policy. Nobody on the left should. And it’s not like there aren’t infinitely more better reasons to criticize Trump. It’s such a target-rich environment that resorting to criticizing his kids over this is really just laziness.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Aqualad08: I’m a Hillary Whore and I don’t have a problem with it, because I don’t think that it’s unreasonable for the parties to exercise some control over who chooses their nominees, and limiting it to people who have demonstrated some sort of long term commitment to the party is a perfectly reasonable threshold. If you want to be independent, that’s a perfectly fine choice, but it means that you aren’t anything more than an ally of convenience rather than someone the party can really count on.
John M. Burt
@Major Major Major Major: Feeling like you’re fifteen beats the trump out of feeling like you’re 90, and I have no idea why I feel this way.
Okay, who’s going to be the next Yokshireman?
Major Major Major Major
@John M. Burt: I do suppose that’s true.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@? Martin: Voting in a general election is a right and should not be abridged. Voting in a primary is not a right, and is subject to restrictions.
Aqualad08
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Oh, no, I agree with you on choosing to be independent. Tough luck, you made a choice. And I have zero sympathies for the Trump spawn; that they didn’t have someone in their employ to alert them and their potential voters of the deadline is, well, Trumpian…
Deadlines are fine, even far in advance deadlines. But once-a-year alterations is just kind of antiquated and lazy. The Board of Elections actually takes your “alteration,” seals it in an envelope, puts the envelope in a box (a literal, physical box, I shit you not) with all the other envelopes and then opens and reviews them after the general election. You are then notified they changed it later.
It’s 2016 and it’s weird that they can’t be a little more responsive and immediate in making the change you are requesting. It’s not the end of democracy by any means, but it feels… old…
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@? Martin: Ivanka is literally the campaign’s spokesperson on how to register to vote. She’s responsible for instructional information for each state. She walks people through the registration process and emphasizes the need to register as a republican in closed contests. (video).
the “kids” are in their mid 30s, all active on the campaign trail. When the “kids” aren’t mutating wild animals on safari they’re personally attacking the other candidates and the President.
“[Obama has] proven to be a very ineffective leader. He has just not risen to the occasion. He doesn’t have business experience or a business mind.” ~ Ivanka Trump. (yeah, business mind, like bankrupting c*sinos and an entire football league)
They’re not civilians.
redshirt
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Comical enemies.
Anne Laurie
@Aqualad08:
It’s far from ideal. But NYC has always been a haven for “little” parties — some of which, like the WFP, are still putting candidates into city & state offices, just like we are always encouraging our fellow Democrats to do. And one big reason the party-switching deadlines fall so far in advance of the primaries is to keep the two big parties from sending their surrogates in to overwhelm the ongoing smaller-party’s committed voters on particular issues during election seasons where that would give them an unfair advantage. It’s bad enough for us Dems to deal with a seventeen-year-cicada situation where bandwagon Bernistas want to swamp “our” primary, or for the Repubs to deal with lifelong non-voters who suddenly want to join the Trumprolution; smaller parties would quickly turn into pure surrogates for one of the Big Two.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Aqualad08: The system may be antiquated, but I still don’t have a problem with requiring the change in registration to be completed sufficiently far in advance that it would represent a commitment to the party rather than a desire to vote for a specific candidate. If your only reason to be a Democrat is to vote for Bernie Sanders, then why should the party view you as a committed member?
redshirt
I also just learned that talking on your phone all day is weak
different-church-lady
I’ve lost track: are we terrified that Trump will fumble away the nom because then a republican with a real shot could win the general, or are we terrified that Trump will get the nom because then he has a shot at winning the general?
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: OK, lie still and focus on your breathing. You’ve just had a job interview, and you’ve probably lost a little blood. There are no compound fractures. We’re going to give you some fluids and try to get your heart rate back to normal. Do you have any allergies we should be aware of?
BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: All of them, Katie.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
You should be terrified about Trump anyway.
Poopyman
This one tops the Paterno comment, imo:
Pittsburgh has moved on, except for a few lingering unemployables with a grudge. You know, his base.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Nope. Just can’t bring myself to spending one ounce of worry over anything Trump or any of his loser supporters might do. Just can’t do it. He is a clown. We all know he is a clown. So let’s start treating him like the clown that he is.
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
Nah, as usual, the ammosexuals chickened out. But their threats sure boosted turnout for the counter protest. Good job, ammosexuals!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Poopyman:maybe he meant the Steel..ers. he’s going to bring back the Steelers. Let’s face Trump has the midas touch with football. Look at the way he beat the NFL in the court room and won 3 dollars. All he does is win.
geg6
@Poopyman:
Exactly. Pittsburgh hasn’t relied on steel for jobs since Reagan killed the industry and coal was never a Pittsburgh thing. Coal was king in central PA and West Virginia. The idiots who are coming out for Trump and cheering for that nonsense are too stupid to get hired in the city’s main industries of health care, education and high tech. And Trump obviously knows nothing about the Pittsburgh of today. He still thinks we are what we were thirty years ago.
tinare
@geg6: To be fair, coal was a yyyuuugge industry in Pittsburgh in the late 1800s when all of my great-grandparents immigrated here to be coal miners. Mt. Washington was formerly referred to as Coal Hill.. I live within the city limits and my house sits on totally undermined land. Of course my house was built in 1920, so there you go,
I was totally struck by how bad his pander was. I mean you can’t have even tried to learn anything about Southwestern PA to limit your sports pander (other than mentioning that you have a lot of friends in Pittsburgh, including Big Ben) to Penn State. Really? He ended his JoPa remarks (the guy the rural “Pennsyltuckians” — really guys? — around here actually believe ate babies) with, “but we love Penn State, don’t we?” And people booed. Yes, there are Penn Staters here, but this is the intersection of Pitt, Penn State and WVU fans. It doesn’t take a lot of research to know that Pitt and Penn State had a yyyyuuuugggee rivalry and that JoPa has been hated by a large section of the population since long before anyone heard of Jerry Sandusky.
He also tried to up his PA cred by noting that he went to school in PA for awhile so he knows all about Pennsylvania. Yep. in Philadelphia. Nowhere near, and bears little resemblance to, Southwestern PA. His whole attempt to relate came off as totally out of touch. Not it would hurt him at all, but it was bad and painful to watch. He didn’t spend 5 minutes trying to find out anything about the area. Any real politician would be toast, but his voters seem to not be bothered by a billionaire who is clearly pandering to them in general, and can’t even seem to try to pander well locally by actually trying to learn anything about them. I am totally at a loss as to how anyone cannot see right through the man,
But, I am still rooting for him to win the primary, because Cruz is really frightening.
jharp
@tinare:
Have not been to your fair city in years but always really liked Pittsburgh. Used to visit about once a month.
Really dig the Fort Pitt museum, the new ball park, and got to play at Oakmont Country Club once.
To me, Pittsburgh is the only rust belt city to reinvent itself. And they did a marvelous job.
Incidentally I used to call on a place in the old Terminal Way Building. Just east of Station Square.
jharp
@geg6:
Could not agree with you mosre.
Pittsburgh has indeed reinvented itself. And is an amazing city.
I’d move there without hesitation if the opportunity arose.
Betty
@Mai.naem.mobile: According to a nephew who has worked with him, he is quote – a horrible person – endquote.
JMS
@Mai.naem.mobile: Whether or not he is a jerk personally, I don’t think the establishment had much of a problem with Slee…um…Sestak when he was holding down the fort in a pretty red congressional district, which has since gone back to R. I believe the main problem was that he primaried Arlen Specter after everyone from Obama on down had smoothed the way for Specter’s defection and more or less promised he could keep his senate seat (hence, jerk). So, Sestak gave up a congressional seat that he had a good chance of holding onto, going against the wishes of the party, only to lose to Toomey in the general. That didn’t go over well.
That said, I don’t think Specter had a good chance of winning the general either. I voted for Sestak in the 2010 out of the reasoning that “at least he’s actually a Democrat, and Specter’s looking awfully old, and switching parties to avoid going down to a primary defeat to Toomey is kind of pathetic”. I don’t see anything particularly compelling about McGinty and I really don’t see her having a chance in November, though, so I guess I’ll be voting for Sestak again. Still, it would be nice to have actually exciting/electable candidates in this race. Electing a dem to the senate from PA is certainly doable.
J R in WV
I really like Pittsburgh, have some good friends there. I was there for work a couple of times, visited the Pitt area recreationally – I think part of why I like Pittsburgh is the hills and rivers, with bridges. I like mountains and rivers here in WV too.
I like middle-European food, which there’s a lot of in Pittsburgh. Lots of all kinds of good food.
Once visited Carnegie-Mellon’s grad school in CS with a thought that i could do grad school if I didn’t get a job. I was intellectually intimidated for the only time my life. I’ve never worried about who was the smartest person in the room, because I knew I could hang with whoever, but not there.
I was never going to be the smartest person in the room.
They don’t even do MS degrees, and classes are optional, the real way you get a degree there is to invent something so clever no one else has ever thought of anything like that!
Pitt is more normal, you take classes and test til you qualify for a degree, then you graduate.
Joel
@redshirt: The open carry nuts were no where to be seen in Oakland yesterday.
Paul in KY
@redshirt: I hadn’t thought of that…BTW, that sure was a crappy Sat. morning show.
Paul in KY
@? Martin: Hope you didn’t make that mistake.
Stan
Yinzers rock. Pittsburgh is my favorite ‘city I don’t live in’. Maybe someday. Although the beer-buying laws are bizarre in PA.
Trump is indeed clueless about the city. But that’s typical Trump isn’t it?
sinnedbackwards
@redshirt: PennsYltucky. Definitely two “whys” in Pennsyltucky.
redshirt
@Paul in KY: Blasphemy! That was a great morning show!
trollhattan
@Poopyman:
Horses. Did they get a fair deal? No! Da horses, we’re bringing them back. Do you like your Chinese phrenologist? Course not! You’ll have an American phrenologist when you elect Trump, believe you me!
Huzzah, etc.
sinnedbackwards
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Business people, like retired military officers, often make lousy politicians, because they have spent most of their adult lives telling people what to do and it mostly gets done. Cajoling, pleading, threatening, scheming and tricking is an entirely different skillset.
cckids
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Not only that, but she apparently made several PSAs for the campaign “educating” people just how to get registered to vote.
So, what’s her excuse again?
cckids
@Aqualad08:
I think it sucks too, but it isn’t as though the rules were just changed all of a sudden. Bernie’s been running since last July. As with the complaints about superdelegates, maybe if they were actually Democrats, they could have been involved with making and/or changing party rules. Too bad, so sad.
Also, I think there might be a market for an “I’m a Hillary Whore” t-shirt.
Hugely
@tinare: yea that was my reaction – Pittsburgh is more for Pitt than PSU. He woulda done better by mentioning Donnie Iris
He didnt do any homework what a dumbf*ck