Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I was promised a recession.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: I Love A Happy Ending…

Open Thread: I Love A Happy Ending…

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Sometimes I take a brief check at the not-completely-stupid-or-insane Conservatives, just for lulz…

And the Wingnut Wurlitzer will cry out: “You Dems didn’t earn it, WE earned it! (ohwait… )”

Reader Interactions

233Comments

  1. 1.

    redshirt

    I’d like to believe that Trump is the “line too far” but I’ve seen too much republican depravity to be convinced that any line is “too far” for them. They’re collectively evil and will only get more evil as their influence shrinks.

  5. 5.

    smith

    @redshirt: Maybe because he’s another non-politician who got the nom? Don’t see how that constitutes beating him, however.

  7. 7.

    geg6

    WTF is Drumpf talking about? Eisenhower died in, like, 1970 or something. How the fuck did he ever beat Eisenhower at anything, even a round of golf?

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    @redshirt: Hair Furor has been crowing over getting more primary votes than any GOP candidate in history, so my guess is that’s what he’s talking about.

  10. 10.

    Felonius Monk

    For years, I fought the stereotype that liberals are smart and conservatives are stupid.

    (@RadioFreeTom) I guess you just can’t fight the truth.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    @smith:
    Problem has always been the adjective, which should have been Deepest. Republicans are so dedicated they’re prepared to send a submersible into the Marianas Trench with a shovel.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    How did this intellectual zero w/o redeeming qualities blow out the best line up of conservative candidates in a generation?

    Note to conservatives: largest does not mean best. The whole reason there were so many candidates is that there wasn’t one dominant candidate who could scare away all the lesser ones.

  14. 14.

    smith

    @Betty Cracker:

    Hair Furor has been crowing over getting more primary votes than any GOP candidate in history

    Which couldn’t, of course, have anything to do with the increased population from 1952 to now?

  15. 15.

    Major Major Major Major

    Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Privilege Is What Allows Clinton Supporters to Keep Supporting Her is flying around my Facebook wall.

    In other words, you are choosing to put the country at risk by supporting the far weaker and far more vulnerable candidate. And then telling me I must support her. What does that say about your privilege?

    Now with extra Honduras!

    She supported an illegal coup against the democratically-elected president of Honduras, in contravention of international agreements, the advice of her ambassador, and the unanimous vote of every nation in South America, because her pal Lannie Davis was consulting to the people behind the coup, and because Zelaya had the temerity to advocate for higher wages.

    She and her State Department put pressure on the government of Haiti to keep them from raising the minimum wage to 62 cents an hour because Fruit of the Loom and Levi’s thought that was too high.

  21. 21.

    Gvg

    So why is this Tom Nichols guy a conservative? What does he think it means if not stupid or racist or greedy? As far as I can tell that’s what it’s meant for decades at least. What does he think future conservative youngsters are supposed to stand for? If he doesn’t like Trump why isn’t he a democrat?

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    @Felonius Monk: John Stuart Mill quote: “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.””

    Anthony Trollope (who was a conservative) wrote about the problem in his autobiography; as the editor of a publication striving to be ‘bipartisan’, time after time, he was stymied by the fact that liberals would read a well-written conservative article, but any liberal article would lead to conservatives rejecting not just that piece but all future contact (except for outraged letters-to-the-editor) with the magazine. Trollope was the first modern journalist that I know of to discuss the phenomenon we now call ‘epistemic closure’.

  24. 24.

    Felonius Monk

    Although it shouldn’t need saying, the most important reason is that actual racism and serious stupidity are bad, mmmkay?

    (@RadioFreeTom) I guess this is why conservatives for the past 7 1/2 years have prominently placed on display the most vile racist attacks on our first A-A president, amirite Tom? Or is it that you conservatives are for the most part inherently racist and stupid?

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @redshirt:
    @Felonius Monk:
    @geg6:

    I don’t know what he had in mind, but he’s compared himself to Ike in the past re deportation policy (DDE deported something like 1.5 million in “Operation Wetback” [ugh, I feel nasty even typing those two words] ) so perhaps that’s what he’s talking about here. It would take listening to his entire speech to get the context, and I’m pretty sure I’m not willing to do that.

  29. 29.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Emma: Ooh, here’s another choice nugget from elsewhere on that blog. I am now going to stop reading it.

    Why are Clinton’s vote totals in states with electronic voting greatly exceeding the exit polls, which are considered so reliable that they are used as proof of election fraud in other countries?

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    @Felonius Monk:

    Or is it that you conservatives are for the most part inherently racist and stupid?

    There are two flavors of “conservative”.
    Wealthy people who may or may not also be racist.
    Racists.

    That’s it. As I recently told my ex, anyone who is not actually wealthy that mentions “taxes” as a reason for voting as they do is a racist. And her entire family works for a living…so, yeah.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @Iowa Old Lady: I hope he calls her Pocahantas several times every day. Could anything make him seem smaller and less intelligent?

    As a side note, that domain name was really available? Seems strange.

  34. 34.

    boatboy_srq

    Nichols #3 part of his “whaddayamean tweets are 140 chars max” statement – sound a lot like the “think about it” discussion downstairs….

  35. 35.

    Redshift

    @Major Major Major Major: Sounds like a dimwitted attempt at a comeback to people like @PropaneJane who are pointing out that Bernie-or-bust types are people who are privileged enough that they won’t suffer in a Trump administration, and people of color don’t have that luxury.

    It also sounds like the 2016 version of Harriet Christian.

  41. 41.

    smith

    @Corner Stone:

    As a side note, that domain name was really available? Seems strange.

    Yep, if you go to pocahontas.com it redirects to Warren’s page with a big ol’ anti-Trump message up front.

  44. 44.

    Citizen_X

    @Corner Stone: Hey, it worked so well for Scott Brown!

    (And yes, the Trumpers are doing the war whoops now, too. All that remains is the tomahawk chop. Come on, guys, don’t let us down!)

  47. 47.

    jl

    Moved from football thread above to more congenial location:

    ” How did this intellectual zero w/o redeeming qualities blow out the best line up of conservative candidates in a generation? ”

    Uhh… what?

    Dole, McCain and Romney are like world historical statesmen and geniuses compared to the GOPer bozos who ran this year. Jeebus.

    Edit: and talk about low bars…. especially McCain… (remember McCain’s foreign policy campaign adviser was involved in the Georgia-Russia war plotting and McCain tried to use the crisis for his campaign, and his brilliant performance in the financial meltdown… so we are talking very low bar here.

  51. 51.

    MattF

    Der Trump is trying to be cruel with the ‘Pocahontas’ gibe, but… it’s not working. His constituency is disappointed.

  56. 56.

    boatboy_srq

    @Roger Moore: More like barrel, bottom thereof, and the hairpiece floated to the top.

    Isn’t curious how, after GHWB, Dole, McCain, Buchanan (who although a horse’s are at least had a coherent platform) and the others, the 2012 lineup is the “best”? Makes you wonder what conservatist criteria are.

  57. 57.

    Redshift

    @Jeff Spender: Also, unless the person making that argument has some statistical analysis to point to, I bet it’s a case of “I’m sure I see a pattern here!” Humans are really good at seeing patterns that aren’t actually there, especially when they support preconceived beliefs.

  58. 58.

    Frank Wilhoit

    Since Reagan announced his candidacy in Philadelphia, MS, no Republican has had standing to deprecate racism. (See also Atwater, Lee.)

    Since Reagan established a back channel with the Iranian regime during, and for the purpose of undercutting, the Carter Administration, no Republican has had standing to address foreign policy or national security.

    The remaining strands of conservatism are Xtian Dominon and the capitalism of captured institutions.

    What do all of these things have in common? (…Jeopardy music…)

    Unaccountability.

    What does modern conservatism have in common with the divine right of kings? No music this time: you got it, unaccountability.

    The King is no longer an individual chosen by heredity; today the King is a faction, either a majority, or a plurality, or just having the sheer brass balls to pretend that it is the one or the other. But the King and the King’s friends have to be above the law: it must protect them, but not bind them. And for the little people it is the reverse: the law binds them, but does not protect them.

    That is conservatism and that is all it has ever been since the days when it had no name, because it was the only model of polity that had ever been conceived.

    Every conservative proposal has the concrete effect of making some conservative constituency less accountable: be it business, be it the Church, be it the Deep State, be it the King’s friends of the moment, who are used to create the illusion of majority.

    Thus Trump, who seems to have enough friends to look or sound like a majority. And this is why no major voice in the conservative movement will decline to bask in his reflected legitimacy. And this is why the conservative movement is still a monolith and has been right along. All the chatter about splits in the movement or the Party has been so much shadow-play.

  60. 60.

    jl

    @redshirt: Trump yelling fever dreams about how he is more popular than Eisenhower? Or ripped through a field of GOP dolt primary candidates more easily than Eisenhower ever did? Or Trump woke up one day and decided he was just smarter, more accomplished and generally classier and more terrific than Eisenhower.

    How did a major political party cough up this loon as a presidential candidate?

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Citizen_X:

    Now we just need old Welch’s Grape Juice* and Hamm’s Beer** commercials to make it perfect.

    * “W- W- W- W- Welch’s!”

    ** “From the land of sky-blue waters….”

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    @Redshift:

    Humans are really good at seeing patterns that aren’t actually there

    My son and I were talking about this trait recently regarding rain. It’s fascinating what the human brain is pre-programmed to do with little or no influence as a guide.

  65. 65.

    Vor

    @Citizen_X: well, they have driven away the Hispanic voters, the African-American voters, the Muslim voters, and are in the process of driving away the Asian voters. Why not piss off all the Native American voters too?

  66. 66.

    boatboy_srq

    @eemom: Translation: multiple posts (usually following the X of Y, or x/y, formula to denote the sequence and total). Used by goobers who can’t grok that tweets max at 140 characters and who forget that bumper-sticker length statements are all their readers can assimilate.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @MattF: The Pocahontas gibe isn’t particularly smart for a candidate whose party handlers have been begging him to “ixnay on the acism-ray” either.

  70. 70.

    Felonius Monk

    @Corner Stone:

    anyone who is not actually wealthy that mentions “taxes” as a reason for voting as they do is a racist

    I tend to agree with you here to a degree, but you still have a lot of these people that spout “taxes” when there is no racial or gender component among the candidates. Many of these people are paying insignificant income taxes and appear to be too stupid to realize that when the wealthy don’t pay their fair share that the burden will ultimately fall on them or they will have reduced services.

  74. 74.

    Mike in NC

    @Citizen_X: Maybe Drumpf has animosity towards Native Americans because their gambling establishments compete with his. Unfairly, of course!

  78. 78.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @smith:
    In, like, a deerskin dress and some Hollywood ‘Indian’ paraphernalia. And glasses.

  80. 80.

    Corner Stone

    @Felonius Monk:

    Many of these people are paying insignificant income taxes and appear to be too stupid to realize that when the wealthy don’t pay their fair share that the burden will ultimately fall on them or they will have reduced services.

    Sure. But what they are always actually complaining about is that their taxes are going to black people in a redistribution scheme. That’s 100% of the people in TX who are not wealthy that complain about taxes. NJ and CA and other coastal elite paradises may have some element of people too stupid to realize how taxes actually work, but on the whole, every person I encounter that mentions the word “taxes” is really saying n-word and/or mexican.

  81. 81.

    MattF

    Speaking of Senator Professor Warren, this is a long-form piece by Charlie Pierce about her. I’m certain that Der Trump has no idea what he’s facing with her.

  83. 83.

    jl

    I guess on the bright side, I am meeting more and more Republicans who can’t stand Trump and are going to hold their nose and vote HRC, or write in Arnold, or Micky Mouse, or stay home. Maybe other places GOPers are falling in line, but here, the more they think about it, the more horrified they are. At least the Republicans in my social circle.

    But then this is SF Bay CA. The GOPers in my social circle are all Arnold Republicans who believe and global warming and stuff. Well, more evidence Trump has zero chance in CA, so I hope he wastes a lot of time and money here for the general election.

  84. 84.

    ThresherK

    Spousal ThresherK is spending her weekend with her best friend, 100mi away, on her birthday weekend. She considers all of June to be her birthday. Really, she’s in the NFLTG part of her life; last June 29th she lied to a waitress that “It’s my birthday” and got a free dessert, three weeks after her birthday.

    Her present, and the nice dinner out, are on hold until about two of my paychecks from now. Unprompted, I’m housecleaning. Neither of us are good at it, or at doing much of it, so it’s the least I could do.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    @shomi: Always Wrong Shomi can’t seem to get with the program. Who could have guessed that someone who is always wrong about everything could not figure out a simple post on the site always wrong shomi loves to hate read? Sad!

  88. 88.

    smith

    @Corner Stone:

    every person I encounter that mentions the word “taxes” is really saying n-word and/or mexican.

    I have a similar problem with wealthy people who claim to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal. I believe them that not paying taxes is at the top of their priority list, but if the full extent of your social “liberality” means you support abortion rights, gay marriage, and smoking dope, but you refuse to contribute to the common good, then “liberal” is not the word for you.

  91. 91.

    MattF

    @shomi: Another case of a conservative saying things that are true and make sense. It’s so strange, and yet– somehow– I doubt that it can last. We shall see.

  92. 92.

    Aleta

    @redshirt:
    “What exactly does Trump mean that he beat Dwight? ”

    Just a wild guess, but

    The Eisenhower Executive Office Building was referred to by Mark Twain as “the ugliest building in America.” Harry Truman called it “the greatest monstrosity in America.” (from wikipedia)

  93. 93.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    The Pocahontas gibe isn’t particularly smart for a candidate whose party handlers have been begging him to “ixnay on the acism-ray” either.

    But he can make a remotely plausible argument that it’s not racist, which is all they need to overlook it. See, it’s about her faking Native American ancestry to take advantage of affirmative action, so it’s a criticism of her actions, not of her heritage per se. We all know it’s bullshit- she does have Native American ancestry, and complaints about affirmative action generally are racist- but it gives Trump enough cover that his fellow Republicans aren’t worried about defending it.

  96. 96.

    Aqualad08

    @redshirt:

    What exactly does Trump mean that he beat Dwight? Hasn’t he been dead for many years?

    Pretty sure he’s referring to the fact that more people voted for He, Trump than any other candidate in a Republican Primary ever.

    That he takes that measure without regards to population increase or the fact that he has also set the record for most votes against him in a primary as a positive is very telling. He can’t stop talking about a primary that’s been over for weeks at his rallies because he’s got nothing left but to bully Democrats, and every time he does he says something incredibly harmful to his chances in the general.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @jl:

    How did a major political party cough up this loon as a presidential candidate?

    I’m going with – That’s the best they could do. He reflects the goals and ideals of the party.

  100. 100.

    ThresherK

    @smith: “If my daughter needed an abortion (she’d spend ‘a semester abroad’), my son came out (‘he could move to a place which recognizes gay marriage’)”.

    It’s a well-documented path that sort of folks take.

    Do you consider that worse than the Libertarians who say “Sure, if a state unrestricts abortion or gay marriage, I’m in favor of it”?

  101. 101.

    lamh36

    Been sitting here watching Firestarter on STARZ.

    Haven’t seen this movie in a minute!

    Drew Barrymore, Heather Locklear, David Keith, Martin Sheen, George C Scott.

    Hmmm…1984 David Keith…was so BAE.

  108. 108.

    jl

    @Roger Moore: I think BC is making some sort of category error using the word ‘smart’ and ‘Trump’ in the same sentence. I thought early on maybe Trump was just using brmsix* memes to appeal to the rabid insane GOP base. But turns out Trump is a true bone-deep brmsix. He doesn’t think so because he does know a few Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, Muslims, women, whoever, who he deems to be ‘good ones’ so he just cannot conceive the possibility that he is a complete and hopeless bigot in every way one can imagine.

    But he is a true bone-deep brmsix, and it will show every time he says more than a couple of words not in a script or on a teleprompter.
    When Wilmore said that Trump is the kind of person who is sure something has to be true just because he heard himself just say it, I thought it was a joke, but, turns out that is just a simple truth about the guy.
    So, put those two things together, ‘thinking’ and ‘Trump’ don’t really go together.

    *brmsix: Bigoted, Racist, Misogynist, Stupid Ignorant and Xenophobic. We need an acronym, ’cause unfair to leave one out, and too long to type every time. Pronounce ‘bermsiks’. Trump is the brmsix candidate!

  109. 109.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Iowa Old Lady: His parents are republican. When you grow up that way it takes a while to be deprogrammed.

    Case in point: Elizabeth Warren was republican and didn’t become a democrat until she turned 46 (supported reagoon and nixon twice).

  111. 111.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom

    Because he promised free stuff and social revenge on brown people and college grads.

    I must of missed it, what free stuff did Trump offer?

  112. 112.

    ThresherK

    @redshirt: A slideshow I stumbled on once showed us a world in which The Internet Never Existed.

    The non-internet Yahoo chat room? Windowless rusty white van parked next to a playground.

    The non-internet Rickroll? Huge cart with TV and VCR (with Rick Astley video playing) left on someone’s porch, doorbell rung and person scampering away.

  113. 113.

    smith

    @rikyrah: Poor Reince — pretty much his entire career in presidential campaigns has consisted of grasping at straws.

  114. 114.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @rikyrah:

    In a stroke of defiance, Reince Priebus told Romney donors that Trump will win in Nov “with or without you”

    Then why shouldn’t they keep their money? Unless they’d be missing out on a quid pro quo from the President. Is that what the Obvious Anagram was saying?

  119. 119.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Betty Cracker: That’s unbelievably stupid, but I’m sure Teh Donald’s fucktard base just eats it up, because they don’t know any better, being unbelievably stupid.

  121. 121.

    jl

    @NotMax: Thanks. We need an acronym with ‘jerk’, ‘ass’ or ‘suck’ in it, but I can’t think of anything.

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    @smith: Yeah, after I posted that I wondered whether Trump and his team would even know about .net. Let’s hope not.

  123. 123.

    wuzzat

    @Roger Moore: I’m really not sure which part of this is sadder: The part where Drumpf is cribbing off of Scott Brown’s failed playbook, or the part where he skipped the pun that elevated Brown’s attacks to middle school-level taunts.

  124. 124.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    “Dwight D. Eisenhower—great guy…I beat him.” -Donald Trump just now, for real

    When you think about it, Trump is Andrew Dice Clay — insult, shock, misogynist man-child with thick Brooklyn/Queens accent.

    This is actually a line from Clay’s horrible movie “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane”. The crap film is a remake of Bogart’s “The Big Sleep” with Clay as a private eye. One of his opening lines is: “Clint Eastwood—great guy…I fucked him.”

  126. 126.

    Ken

    Maybe Trump is trying to drive away the few remaining “Eisenhower Republicans”? Like so much of his campaign, it makes sense if you start with the theory that he’s trying to destroy the Republican party.

  128. 128.

    Chyron HR

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:

    Then why shouldn’t they keep their money? Unless they’d be missing out on a quid pro quo from the President. Is that what the Obvious Anagram was saying?

    Oh, be fair. It was obviously a threat of retribution.

  129. 129.

    MattF

    @jl: I suspect that there’s no single personality disorder that really describes him. So, what’s ‘asshole’ in Latin?

  130. 130.

    Ken

    @shomi: Interesting that Whitman says she’ll wait until the VP picks are announced to say whether she supports Trump. Was something said at that meeting of top Republicans that made her think the VP will have to suddenly step in for Trump?

    He may want to watch his back…

  131. 131.

    MattF

    @Ken: Well, just the notion that Trump’s VP pick would make a difference means that she doesn’t quite get it.

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @NotMax:

    Come to think of it, would add a Ji in there for Jingoistic. Biramijistix

    Wasn’t he that little magical guy in the Superman comics?

  141. 141.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Iowa Old Lady: Actually it was someone who thinks she’s a good senator/supports her. He then linked it so that anyone who goes to the site gets automatically redirected to her website. Specifically the fundraising section.

  144. 144.

    jl

    @Felonius Monk: I think CA passed a lot of regional and local tax and bond propositions. For example, SF Bay Area voted itself $500 million for marsh restoration. A little global warming sea level rise insurance that will probably pay of big time in a few decades.

  145. 145.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mike in NC: Yes, Trump’s got a history of suing Native American casino operators as “unfair competition”. (That’s part of the Trump mythos: Assume the worst and you’ll always be correct.)

    @smith:

    That would be a great cartoon — Liz Warren holding up the Dumpster’s hairpiece in victory.

    Let’s leave that to the Native American cartoonists, okay? Trump’s ‘Pocahontas’ bs is parallel to his “I love the Hispanics, watch me eat a taco bowl” crap… his base gets a nasty little racist thrill up their legs & us normal people are supposed to look like prudes if we complain. Hispanics were more than capable of punching back — the Trump pinatas stole the news cycle — and I’m sure the people Trump’s ‘war whoops’ are aimed at have their own means of retaliation.

  146. 146.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Gallup Poll — President Obama — June 11, 2016

    Approve……………..54%
    Disapprove………..42%

    +12

  149. 149.

    jl

    @jl:

    So, to continue my prediction binge: CA has good chance of continuing higher than average econ growth due to better than average level of public investment (though rest of US is a low bar).

    ” Based on election night counts with 100 percent of all precincts reporting, 70 of the 89 tax and bond measures have passed. Several others are too close to call. All majority vote city tax proposals passed except perhaps one: a one percent sales tax measure in Compton that currently is too close to call at 49.5 percent yes. All seven school parcel tax measures passed and 41 out of 46 school bonds were approved ”

    California’s Local Tax and Bond Measure Results June 2016
    http://www.cacities.org/Top/News/News-Articles/2016/June/California-s-Local-Tax-and-Bond-Measure-Results-Ju

  151. 151.

    JPL

    @Ken: If they try to impeach Trump, there will be riots. He unleashed the crazies, and there is no way they are going to go back in their shelter.

  152. 152.

    NotMax

    @jl

    Aw, you fixed it. Was kind of enamored with the concept of seal level rise.

    “My God, they’re barking on Nob Hill!”

  153. 153.

    jl

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Let us hope the job market recovery continues (and latest report was a blip, though wage increase good news continued, IIRC). I think that is a big part of it, in addition to Obama being less cautious.

    Bill Clinton coined a cynical but sadly true statement to the effect that voters prefer leaders who appear strong but who are wrong to leaders who appear weak but are right. But really hard to beat strong and right. And Obama’s subtle political mastery contributed a lot to generally good feeling Democrats have about the primary (regardless of blood shed by the BJ HRC/Sanders fight club).

  155. 155.

    Anne Laurie

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: “We’ll big a wall, and the Mexicans will pay for it.”

    “When I make THE BEST trade deals, we’ll take our manufacturing back from China/Japan/Europe.”

    Shorter Trump — We’ll take stuff away from Those People, and give it (back) to you.

    If you’re the kind of person who believes that welfare recipients get ‘free Obamaphones’ and food stamps good for t-bone steaks & lobster, why shouldn’t *you* get the free stuff for once?

  156. 156.

    Kropadope

    @Citizen_X:

    And yes, the Trumpers are doing the war whoops now, too. All that remains is the tomahawk chop. Come on, guys, don’t let us down!

    Does Trump actually know who his opponent is? This makes me worry that if the nation is attacked somehow, Trump will be the second consecutive Republican president to take us to war with some entity other than the one which attacked us.

  157. 157.

    jl

    @Anne Laurie: The deluded bigots who vote for Trump just think that justice will finally be served, and that they will get back all their hard earned stuff what was stolen from them. No talking sense to them in their 1 + 1 = IWuzRobbed world.

  159. 159.

    NotMax

    @Kropeadope

    “What’s that you say? The British really burned the White House? Those slimy limeys are history. We attack at dawn! “

  163. 163.

    Anne Laurie

    @JPL:

    If they try to impeach Trump, there will be riots. He unleashed the crazies, and there is no way they are going to go back in their shelter.

    McConnell has been arguing, in all seriousness, that as long as Trump picks a “knowledgeable” VP there won’t be any problems.

    Because that worked so well when Dubya picked Cheney.

    Hey, those eight years were kind to ol’ Mitch and his buddies — what else is important?

  165. 165.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Kropadope: Drumpf lashes out at anyone who dares to question him. So Warren gets lashed at, and he’s going to make the mistake of attacking Obama eventually, and he will probably use the “N” word which will delight his base of racist fucks but cause the GOP establishment to have kittens.

  168. 168.

    jl

    @Kropadope:

    ” Does Trump actually know who his opponent is? ”
    The incredible mental and emotional indiscipline that makes Trump such a horror to contemplate at president will hopefully be another reason he will be an historically disastrous candidate. He just can’t help getting obsessed with whatever and whoever gets under his skin.

    I am sure the HRC camp is watching. Look for Obama, Biden, Warren, Sanders, every prominent Dem taking turns taking high profile potshots at Trump, who immediately becomes unhinges and goes on an insult binge for a couple of days.

    Edit: and that will be in addition to his deranged frenzy at just any random adverse news, court decisions, rain at one of his golfing tournaments (if any still exist), problem with his line of Trump doorstops, whatever… , etc.

    While HRC acts like a sane persona and calmly campaigns away. She will only have to unload on Trump every ten days or so.

  171. 171.

    Anne Laurie

    @Major Major Major Major: Nice, but nothing will improve on Charlie Pierce’s disemvowelling: Reince Priebus = RNC PR BS.

    If you used that for a fictional character, it would be rejected as ‘too broad’.

  173. 173.

    Cat48

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    The president at 54%? Well done, Sir! Time to show Trump how it’s done. Mark Halperin called him a Dick, but he also called Obama, one of the best political athletes in his lifetime. Makes Halperin right once anyway. .i didn’t know pols were called “political athletes”, but whatever!

  178. 178.

    Anne Laurie

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Drumpf lashes out at anyone who dares to question him. So Warren gets lashed at, and he’s going to make the mistake of attacking Obama eventually, and he will probably use the “N” word which will delight his base of racist fucks but cause the GOP establishment to have kittens.

    I swear, if there’s a televised debate between Clinton & Trump (and I think his handlers will do everything possible to see that never happens), it’ll be broadcast on time-delay for fear he’ll use the c-word. Possibly in conjunction with the n-word.

    Hell, he may use it during his acceptance speech in Cleveland!

  182. 182.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    With rules as bendy as silly straws. There was one story about him legally changing his name to Mxypyxm, so it would be the same backwards and forwards.

  184. 184.

    maya

    @redshirt:

    I’d like to believe that Trump is the “line too far”

    How about a toupee too far?

    Someone above mentioned that Trump is destroying the Republican Party. Could it just possibly be his goal, as in double agent? I know this has been talked about before but his choice of words and attack are very deliberate. Can the guy really be that stupid not on purpose?

  185. 185.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Magic beings or not, surely they shouldn’t fall for the trick of saying their own name backwards more than like, 3 times. Tops.

    I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever said my own name backwards, and I doubt you could trick me into doing so.

  187. 187.

    NotMax

    @maya

    Based on some of the stuff that dribbled out this week, his credo is “Toupee or not to pay, that is the question.”

  192. 192.

    jl

    @maya: Too complicated.

    Simpler. The GOP has become a hollowed out shell of third rate swindlers and hucksters trying to run with a tired-out con that was falling apart and enraging their base. A first rate conman looked at all the sad and easy BS and thought he could make a quick buck by joining in. Dudes like Gingrich and Cain,and that whathisname from Arkansas (bragged about frying squirrel brains in his dorm corn popper or something) ran smaller time versions before, but they were not world class con-artists and marketers like Trump.

    Lesson: grift the con long enough and sooner or later the con grifts you.

  196. 196.

    different-church-lady

    Although it shouldn’t need saying, the most important reason is that actual racism and serious stupidity are bad, mmmkay?

    As opposed to what? Did he think it was pretend racism and light-hearted stupidity for the past sixteen years?

  197. 197.

    JPL

    @Anne Laurie: haha. Mr. Trump what do you think about Secretary Clinton’s answer. She’s a bleep, bleep, bleep and the American people are tired of the bleep, bleep, bleep.

  198. 198.

    different-church-lady

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Apparently Elizabeth Warren has bought the domain name Pocahontas.com. I look forward to much hilarity.

    Scott Brown tried playing the “fake Native American” card.

    Scott Brown lost.

  200. 200.

    Roger Moore

    @maya:

    Could it just possibly be his goal, as in double agent?

    I doubt it. Trump has been on record with a lot of the same views for basically as long as he’s been in the public eye. That would mean he’d have to be a very deep sleeper agent, which is implausible given that there’s no way people that long ago could have known the Republican party would turn out the way it has. If there’s a nefarious scheme afoot, it’s from the Clintons encouraging him to run and getting a much bigger effect than expected.

  202. 202.

    Chris

    @smith:

    I have a similar problem with wealthy people who claim to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal. I believe them that not paying taxes is at the top of their priority list, but if the full extent of your social “liberality” means you support abortion rights, gay marriage, and smoking dope, but you refuse to contribute to the common good, then “liberal” is not the word for you.

    More to the point, I don’t actually believe that most of these people support abortion rights and gay marriage (maybe smoking dope) in any meaningful way. I believe that they don’t care about abortion rights and gay marriage, that they think the SoCons are idiots for making these things a hill to die on, but that’s very different from actually supporting them.

    Ask them whether they think employers who identify as Catholic (or whatever) should have the right to deny coverage of birth control, contraception, and the like for their female employees; or whether Catholic (or whatever) hospitals should have the right to refuse procedures that go against their ideology; or whether companies should have the right to discriminate against gay patrons.

  203. 203.

    JPL

    Now that Big Ben Roethlisberger said he won’t endorse or speak at the convention, who will? I doubt Brady will sully his reputation, but who knows.

  204. 204.

    Mnemosyne

    @different-church-lady:

    The original smear was that she faked being Native American in order to get hired at Harvard. Then the Cherokee Nation confirmed that does does, in fact, qualify for membership based on her genealogy. So then they had to try and switch the smear to be that she supposedly benefited from “affirmative action,” with even less evidence. And, frankly, trying to claim that obviously smart and successful people were “affirmative action hires” never seems to work for anyone other that committed conservatives.

  205. 205.

    redshirt

    @JPL: I’ve been a Patriots fan since the 1970’s, but I will walk away from the team entirely if Brady speaks at the Republican convention.

    If he does anything for Trump at all I will consider some drastic action.

  207. 207.

    different-church-lady

    @Mnemosyne: Trump is not even bothering with any of that, he’s distilling it down to its playground-taunt essence.

    Trump is the logical conclusion of all the code talking talking they’ve been doing since Nixon unfurled the Southern Strategy. Eventually someone was going to remember that this all equaled “N-word, n-word, n-word”, only forget why it was supposed to be encoded.

  209. 209.

    J R in WV

    @Emma:

    And at the link (one of them, anyways) I see:

    a candidate who is deeply disliked by independents, has historically bad favorability ratings, is under investigation by both the FBI and the NSA…

    This displays both stupidity and ignorance. The NSA is not allowed to investigate anything inside the United States, much as the CIA is only allowed to work outside the country.

    Also, being investigated by law enforcement organizations is no proof of wrong-doing. This is why we have prosecutors and juries. Many investigations lead to… nothing at all.

    There have been dozens of “investigations” of both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. None of these have resulted in criminal prosecution of Ms Clinton, and only the famous Blue Dress has led to any prosecution of Bill Clinton, who hasn’t bee jailed yet, either.

  210. 210.

    Carl W

    @redshirt: Err, you do realize that you were just tricked into saying your name backwards? Back to the 5th dimension for you!

  213. 213.

    Chris

    @J R in WV:

    This displays both stupidity and ignorance. The NSA is not allowed to investigate anything inside the United States, much as the CIA is only allowed to work outside the country.

    This is the kind of thing that regularly drives me crazy in spy movies. Unfortunately, pop-cuture-osmosis means much of the public doesn’t grok these distinctions either.

  214. 214.

    JPL

    @redshirt: Not you.. I don’t see Brady endorsing him. They might have been acquaintances, but so was Hillary. Since Trump has taken off the mask, I don’t see a major player hugging and kissing him. At least I hope not.

  215. 215.

    Adam L Silverman

    @J R in WV: The NSA doesn’t do investigations. They are an electronic intelligence, specifically signals intelligence, organization. Their job is to collect and analyze. Where the NSA comes in on this is that one of the IC claims about retroactive classification as a result of the FOIA request originated with the NSA.

  217. 217.

    Carl W

    @J R in WV:

    The NSA is not allowed to investigate anything inside the United States

    What do you mean? What about the domestic surveillance revealed by Snowden and carried out by the NSA?

  219. 219.

    redshirt

    @Plantsmantx: I’m going to heavily bet yes, way too far. America is better then it seems.

    Watch as we elect a woman President of the most powerful Empire that has ever existed.

  220. 220.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Carl W: That’s not investigation. Law enforcement does investigations. The NSA does signals and other related electronic intelligence collection and analysis. What Snowden revealed is that they were doing collection outside their remit. I’m not trying to split hairs, but there’s a difference between investigations and intelligence collection and analysis.

  222. 222.

    Anne Laurie

    @JPL:

    Since Trump has taken off the mask, I don’t see a major player hugging and kissing him. At least I hope not.

    Pretty sure Roger Goodell would consider that kind of overt endorsement bad for the NFL Brand(tm).

    But I’m thinking Curt Shilling is looking for another 15 minutes in the limelight…

  225. 225.

    Tom

    I just posted this on Facebook:

    It is reported that today Donald Trump said: “Dwight D. Eisenhower—great guy…I beat him.” I have three thoughts:

    1) Given the unbelievable quantity of lies that are spread through social media, I am loath to believe it without confirmation.

    2) If it is true – my father fought under General Eisenhower in World War II. Donald Trump is less than the merest pimple on Dwight David Eisenhower’s ass.

    3) What does it say about a major political party that they would consider this pathologically insecure person, who in a reasonable world would be committed, the appropriate person to lead the United States of America (looking at you, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, et al).

  226. 226.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: The problem there, as almost every commenter other than the author of the post linked to and the original post, and our old friend BIP, is that the data is bad. This is then buttressed by a subjectivity problem in the purpose of the study. It doesn’t matter how good your operations if you’ve got unreliable data and have already prejudged/predetermined your findings.

  227. 227.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: And now we know why BIP liked the post over at Booman. From the Raw Story link you provided:

    The meme was created by Lee Camp, a political comedian who hosts a weekly show on RT, the Russian foreign news network. It has over 2,000 shares on Facebook as of this writing.

  228. 228.

    PurpleGirl

    @smith: General Eisenhower may have been non-political in terms of the political parties but he was a superb politician in terms of working his way up the chain of command to become a general and the commander of the Allied Forces on the Western front. Think of what he had to handle in the realm of dipolamacy between Charles deGaul, Lord Mounbatten and the rest of Western leaders.

  233. 233.

    Big Data

    Hey there! I’ve been following your website for a long time now and
    finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out
    from Austin Texas! Just wanted to mention keep up the
    great job!

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