I had an extremely long and tedious phone conference earlier that required my attendance but only a fraction of my attention. I kept boredom at bay by sketching out my impressions of the Trump 2016 strategy so far:
Did I miss anything? I mean, besides better ways to amuse myself during tedious meetings than thinking about the absurd political situation in the U.S.? I really need better hobbies. Oh well. Summer will be over soon, and I can get back outside and look for birds.
Also, how is it possible that it’s only Wednesday? I feel like I’m in a time-loop of suck. Hope you’re having a better week. Open thread!
PS: The injured doggy is better, I think. Still a bit whiny, clingy and limpy. She returns to the vet for a checkup on Friday. That is all.
CONGRATULATIONS!
97 days until the election.
Mezz
Speaking of strategy or maybe anti-strategy (if one was Paul Ryan), has anybody read the 25th Amendment lately?
Maybe Reince and Ryan think that’s their ultimate out if Trumpf wins – have a majority of his Cabinet vote for Executive Inability, and welcome the Constitutional crisis?
Shell
Cant believe its only Wednsday, too. Betty, love your portrait of Trump. Looks like an angry little Mozart.
The Pale Scot
Brilliant!
LesBonnesFemmes
Love it.
scav
Purple Heart, Purple Heart! Vital component of his military outreach I’d suggest. Besides, he always wanted one. ETA: and it glisters!
The Pale Scot
Not sure if I saw this here so..
Donald being interviewed
Trainspotting
Anoniminous
Sam Wang notes:
If Trump cannot close that gap the House will be in play as loosely attached or NotEverTrump GOP voters stay at home.
Major Major Major Major
@The Pale Scot: Beat me to it. Love it!
Adam L Silverman
@Mezz: Brad DeLong brought this up last week. I think it was tongue in cheek, but who knows anymore?
gogol's wife
You left out Russia.
Amir Khalid
Looks to me like you got it all down. Except that in 14 weeks, Trump still has plenty of time to make many unexpected and shocking additions to the gaffe list portion of the diagram.
Patricia Kayden
You are a comic genius, Betty. That chart is the bomb!! SNL needs to hire you ASAP because I can’t stop laughing.
Melania: “What Michelle said”. LOL!!
Mike J
I’ve just been perusing the fec.gov website, as you do, and found something a bit odd.
This cycle, Clinton has received about $180M in itemized individual contributions. Any contribution over a certain amount (I’m thinking $200, but I could be wrong) you’re required to fill out a donor card. This is used by the FEC to verify that your total contributions don’t go over the $5400 ($2700 primary/general) limit. It is used by well run campaigns to find donors who might be willing to kick in a little more. The more info you have on your donors the better. A good campaign will try to get a donor card for a $1 donation.
Clinton has $50M in un-itemized donations. A ratio of 3.6/1 itemized/un-itemized.
Trump has $12M in itemized individual contributions, $24M in un-itemized. A 1/2 ratio. Is the Trump campaign just completely incompetent? (yes) Is there something fishy about a ratio like that? (yes) does it prove anything on its own? (no)
Other candidates ratios for comparison:
Sanders 96M/134M
Obama ’12 315M/234M
Mnemosyne
Last night, folks were compiling “50 Ways To Lose An Election'” to the tune of the Paul Simon song. I think we need to keep doing that.
scav
@Mnemosyne: Just feel up your kid, Squid.
Anonymous At Work
No insult to Deadpool but it needs to be in crayon.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: Could just be that his campaign is financed by a smaller group of people donating more. I’d believe that.
scav
Wait Wait! Could we work that up into a something like a game board of Snakes and Escalators?! Escalators and Escalators?
Villago Delenda Est
Donald Drumpf is our strongest weapon to retake the Senate AND the House. We dare not misuse him by asserting any sort of control as he thrashes around the country like an unguided missile.
cmorenc
Even if the GOP masterminds were somehow able to stage a convincing, durable intervention with Trump at this point to reset and retool his campaign approach, he only has two more days until the start of the Rio Olympics casts a two-week substantial attention-shadow over public attention to the presidential campaign. The closer it gets to Labor Day without a successful reset / retooling in the public eye, the more solidly frozen in place the current unfavorable dynamics will be until Trump only has two more months to turn things around.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: If they’re donating over $200, they’re required by law to have a donor card, so that would be something fishy. $24 million bucks unitemized when he only has $12 million where they filled out the card. I just sounds wrong.
rikyrah
Found this in the comments at Washington Monthly:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Mike in NC
Chris Hayes on MSNBC is running a Top 10 Trump list of gaffes, updated hourly. Quite a challenge.
rikyrah
I don’t know why, but your drawing of the Zombie Eyed Granny Killer tickles me.
Tom65
Meg Whitman jumped ship last night and Pence just endorsed Ryan. Can’t wait for the Trump tsunami to follow.
cmorenc
@cmorenc: I should add that most elections, the state of the race immediately after Labor Day weekend is very difficult to turn around for any candidate with a significant deficit. The debates may be Trump’s next real chance, and even they are only of secondary impact compared to the respective political conventions.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: Oh, I was reading it backwards. That is weird. Most charitable interpretation would be incompetence, like we saw with the Sanderses and their big backlog, but who knows.
Shell
If Trump somehow gets the boot, do you think Pence will be their go-to guy?
Fair Economist
@Anoniminous:
That won’t matter. The swing House districts are almost all in blue or swing states. The red states mostly have unbreakable gerrymanders with districts starting at R+10.
Trollhattan
@Mike in NC: This moron will eventually make Dubya seem…presidential (recalling the endless listing of Bushisms). Is our Donalds learning? Our Donalds are definitely not learning.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Trump voters will crawl over glass to vote for Trump, but I just don’t see them pulling the lever for any other R if the other Rs aren’t backing Trump. Republicans not happy about Trump may not vote for either D or R for president, and may be disgusted at the other Rs on the ballot who have shown themselves to be spineless, mealy mouthed and ineffective. IOW, I see a lot of people on the R side staying home or only voting for their local Rep.
aimai
I’m avoiding reading (or seeing) interviews with Trump voters but I am really curious to see how the voters vote, in the end. Real Trump voters, spite voters, racist voters, will vote for Trump (if they vote at all) whether he threatens to nuke downtown LA or New York on day one. My opinion is that they are basically people who don’t really grasp that the Presidency is a real job, with real responsibilities and with real outcomes. Then there are others, the so called “normal” Republicans. Lots of them are going to end up not voting for Trump but simply staying home and hoping that the Democrats and other voters rescue them from Trump without their having to face up to behaving responsibly. Voting for Clinton is just going to be too big of a bridge to cross. Their lives,and their politics, are as spite driven as the Trump voters and they won’t be able to handle the rage at being forced to actually acknowledge, in the ballot, the obvious failure of their party and their vaunted morality/patriotism. But I’d like to read a real psychological profile with them after the election. If Trump doesn’t win and blow us all up first.
Mnemosyne
One of my friends just shared this on Facebook: Lewandowski being told “Boy, bye!” when he tried to say that Trump would release his taxes when Obama releases his college transcripts.
(At least I think it was Lewandowski, but I’m too lazy to re-check.)
Seanly
Yeah, I have that “it’s only f’king Wednesday” thing going on also.
I work for a large consulting engineering firm. Since I am a white collar worker I am a non-exempt employee (usually means I only ever get straight overtime). I am salaried but also hourly since what we sell is my hours to clients. So it usually works as the worst of being salaried and hourly.
Right now, we’re a little light on work. Most engineering firms have an admin number that employees can charge their time to when they’re slow. Management in that case is motivated to keep the employees busy as it takes several hours of billable work profits to cover idle employees. Not my company! We have to use our PTO to make our 40-hours a week if we don’t have enough billable work.
I work in our transportation market as a bridge engineer. We have a small staff in this office and I report to someone in another office (who isn’t moving to get me other work). It’s expected that people have a wide variety of contacts in other offices and are self-motivated to get enough work. Though I have some internal contacts, it’s not that many and most of the other bridge folks are in the same boat as me. Very frustrating and I just want this f’king week done.
eric
@Trollhattan: I would crawl over broken glass to vote for W if Trump was the other option
msdc
Just the nukes.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: If it was Lewandowski, he also said that maybe Obama hadn’t released his transcripts because he applied to Harvard as a furriner. Having been born in Kenya and all. I saw a snippet this morning.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
I think Donald Trump is among the group that doesn’t understand that being president is more than posing with sports teams and making speeches. I still think he’s a racist asshole who decided that he could totally be president because Obama can do it and he’s better than some black dude.
the wesson
Oh he’ll get better for a short while (when kids intervene, maybe). Then worse.
This isn’t over yet. It really is “interesting times”.
Anoniminous
@Fair Economist:
Maybe it won’t matter, in which case: OK. As a paranoid :-) tho’ I’ll take every advantage we can get.
Quinerly
Rep Karen Bass (D CA) launching an online petition calling for psych examination of Trump after consulting with mental health experts and doctors
Gene108
I started running a fever last night. I then got blitzed with calls this morning, when all I wanted to do was stay in bed. My cell phone is the devil.
When you tell people I am running a fever, why do they not understand it does not mean I’ll drop things and make calls.
catclub
@Mezz:
Has congress so provided by law?
Quinerly
@Mnemosyne:
I have thought that from the beginning. If a Black guy can do it, it can’t be that hard attitude.
Greg
Are Randall and Mortimer Duke still backing Trump?
Villago Delenda Est
@Fair Economist: The problem with “unbreakable” gerrymanders is that in an election with a top of the ticket as insane as the one the Rs have now, all bets of a “normal” election cycle are off.
The House could come into play. Just yesterday teabaggers were getting their asses kicked in Kansas.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne:
Just yell at the babe, Gabe
Get really mad, Vlad
Choose the Pence, Vince
@scav: LMAO!
catclub
@eric:
The is the fear of the unknown versus the acceptance of the known and experienced speaking. Given that the nation survived the W admin, the nation would probably also survive a Trump admin. (not everything is actually controlled by the Pres)
jl
I heard on the news that a brave Trump spokesman trying to explain to the sheeples how Obama got in his time machine again and changed rules of engagement to get the poor Khan’s son killed in 2004.
Why, oh, why don’t people listen? Political correctness? Of course.
amk
so, whatever happened to our resident troll, srv?
Mnemosyne
@Quinerly:
I first realized it when Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to the Supreme Court and there were a whole bunch of self-appointed assholes who actually seemed to think that any ambulance-chasing white guy would *obviously* do a better job than a Harvard-educated appellate judge. Because white guys are better at everything than everyone else. It was frighteningly eye-opening.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
I disagree. Why else have your campaign manager actually come out and SAY that he’s going to be ‘ Chairman of the Board’ -type President. The details of BEING President – that can be delegated.
ONLY A White Man could have ANYONE on their behalf utter this, and not be laughed out of the room.
sigh.
Not just Trump…but, ALLL of them…
ALLLLL of them…
not understanding that a Black man..
Let alone a Black man named Barack Hussein Obama…
that gets ELECTED to the Presidency of the United States…TWICE..
is automatically smarter than 98% of any room he walks into.
period.
Quinerly
NY Times breaking with their guidelines re profanity…publishing “Voices from Donald Trump’s Rallies, Uncensored.”
Mike in DC
Is white ethno nationalism and rat fuckery enough to win a presidential election?
Reply hazy, ask again later.
Steve in the ATL
@Seanly:
Wow that is fucked up
Quinerly
@amk:
I was wondering too. Long time lurker here, only recently posting and thoroughly reading comments. How long had he/she been around…all through the primaries?
Shell
How many times must we remind these morons that Obama isn’t running for anything in 2016
cmorenc
@aimai:
Part of the fierce obstructionism the GOP has put up to Obama, and now to the prospect of a Clinton presidency and SCOTUS majority is a hardening realization that the 2016-2020 period may likely be their last chance to fundamentally undo the fundamental long-term progressive direction of government ever since the New Deal and society ever since the 1960s, back to a fundamentally conservative structure and imagined Ozzie-and-Harriet social order from the 1950s before being gay was chic and POC knew that to have any place they had to assimilate as culturally Caucasian. And they are likely correct in their assumption about looming irreversibility, even if wrong about their nostalgic vision of 1950s America. Sure, part of it across some segments is racial resentment at the creeping loss of dominance by whites that Obama’s presidency so vividly reminds them of, but that’s hardly all there is to it.
singfoom
@Seanly:
IANAL, but that sounds fishy as fuck to me. How does that even work? You’re salaried but have billable hours? I was a consultant who billed hourly and I would have balked and quit my job if I was asked to use my PTO to deal with the lack of billable hours….
eric
@catclub: i dont actually believe this and i dont frighten easily. I truly see Trump as an existential threat to the future of the world and/or to the arc of justice.
Gin & Tonic
@Quinerly: srv’s been here for a long time. The last few months have brought out some new trolls, most of which seem to be gone now, but they weren’t very good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Quinerly: srv has been here for year and years. srv is a pure troll (trolling for the trolling’s sake) who will adopt different personae in order to get a rise from commenters. The Trump supporter persona is probably no more real than any of the others.
ETA: re-addressed
Major Major Major Major
@Steve in the ATL: That’s legal??
@Quinerly: srv’s been around for years.
Soylent Green
What amazes me about Trump’s Twitter habit is that after he tweets, he will often dive right in to the uncensored stream of replies and aggressively attack the citizens who dare to oppose him. So to get the full measure of his tweeting you have to view the replies.
Idi Amin was more presidential.
amk
@Quinerly: Idiot trolls like srv are permanent bj fixtures. Fuck cole and his ‘policy’ on that.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk: He’s probably crying in his cheerios at the epic meltdown of Drumpf since Khizr Khan totally pwned Drumpf’s sorry ass.
piratedan
@Betty Cracker: how about….
release the nukes, luke
Trollhattan
@Seanly:
Man that sucks. Been there, done that, got the (shitty) tshirt. Survived serial downsizing to the point my shop was mostly supporting projects housed at other offices and eventually had a “boss” three time zones away. When the time finally came I was laid off over the fucking telephone. Giant engineering firms are one of the worst work environments I’ve encountered and all the chatter about STEM fails to warn kids that all that training will probably send them to one of them, only to find out “the Mumbai office will be handling the structural work on this project, thanks. Go find some billable work because the regional VP has cut overhead to three percent. Also, stock price and earnings are off so the maximum raise for next year will be two percent.”
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
Ye gods.
Fair Economist
@Villago Delenda Est:
The House is in play, but not the gerrymandered districts. The swing districts are overwhelmingly in non-gerrymandered states, or in blue-leaning states where even a gerrymander can’t eliminate the swing districts (PA, FL). In most states, the gerrymanders are VERY hard, and they would only flip in a 72/84 level of loss, with significant coattails, and there’s been nothing like that since ’64.
catclub
@eric: My point was that W has been lived through.
Would you walk over ground glass to vote for Ted Cruz rather than Trump? That is a more relevant comparison.
Lots of people here would say that Cruz could be as bad or worse than a Trump Presidency ( and the uncertainty is why they cannot decide.)
Trollhattan
@amk:
I know of three items that will harvest the banhammer of peace: blatant racism, blatant sexism, doxxing. I frankly wish he’d do it more but in any case, support his rare bans fully.
Keith P.
@Soylent Green: He’s super-easy to bait. I’m really surprised the Clinton campaign doesn’t have (more?) fake twitter accounts set up to get him to fight with autistic kids and paraplegic nuns.
amk
@Fair Economist: But then, the deadbeat ‘phenomenon’ worse that ’64. I am sure dems are smart enough to know that.
nominus
North Carolina’s attempt to defend HB 2 didn’t go very well. http://m.indyweek.com/indyweek/north-carolina-tried-to-defend-hb-2-in-federal-court-it-didnt-go-well/Content?oid=5056011
Quinerly
@amk:
Oh, I know that. Been reading comments here since Bush Adm. Just wondering if he had been around for a year or so…if he was a Trump supporter from the beginning?
Gene108
@amk:
Srv is not a pre troll. He does ocassionally post non-troll comments.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
Tricky one, especially the more we observe of the Trump show. My Cruz/Trump evaluation is they’re the difference between laser-focused concentrated evil (on every level social and political) and a continual childlike tantrum. Trump would create untold collateral damage while Cruz would surgically damage government and the nation with focused intent. Hell if I know which would be worse to live through but President Cruz would ensure his damage is far longer lasting. Trump would be probably be booted from office in about a Palin Unit.
Quinerly
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks.
amk
@Amir Khalid: inorite? whatev happened to “Mr Trump” pc?
catclub
@Fair Economist: This is totally wrong to my eye. The absolute safest districts in a state gerrymandered by the GOP
are the Democratic ones that go 80-20, while far, far, more districts go 55-45 for the GOP. This is why PA has 5 Democratic and 12(?) GOP representatives, but there were more votes cast for Democrats in the state..
In a wave election all (or many) of the those 55-45 districts get blown away.
Chris
@Seanly: Damn man..I’ve been running a small (4-6) person PME firm for 22 years…that shit there is downright Machiavellian. Sounds like something from a Dilbert cartoon that Wally and Dilbert would be dealing with.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: Well, I can’t say much for the woman saying “boy, bye.” She should have hit him straight on and said directly “President Obama, the first African American President of Harvard Law Review has NOTHING to prove to Donald J. Trump, a man who couldn’t have bought his way into Harvard Law School and who has been rejected by hundreds of his fellow Wharton graduates.”
Miss Bianca
@cmorenc:
You really are a dreamer, aren’t you? //
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Are you trying to tell us they’re not? Where’s that husband of yours? We need to have a chat with him regarding his allowing you to express — let alone have — an opinion.
I suppose NEXT you’ll tell us that wimmins should be allowed to vote. And drive cars. And work outside the home! What do you think this is, the 21st Century or something?
Kay
She’s really a moderate Republican but “centrists” all rave about her and she’s (supposedly) really popular.
I don’t know if she actually is popular with voters or not, but people are always wishing she would run for things. Not me, but “serious centrist” type people. :)
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: You may say he’s dreamer,
But to me he is just another concern troll.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: This is correct; this is how gerrymandering works.
amk
@Gene108: Lotsa speculation here that it’s indeed dougj. hoodafuck knows ?
also. too. fuck you, cole and bj fp’ers. (ok, not adam… mebbe..)
Miss Bianca
@aimai: Yes, the Trumpeters and the BoB crowd are really the political version of anti-vaxxers…dependent on the herd immunity of the rest of the body politic, all so they can maintain the purity of their…Precious…Bodily…Fluids.
Keith P.
I think I’m going to start trying to predict the biggest Trump news for a given week. I had this lightbulb go off in my head where Trump fires Manafort in the next day or two (someone has to pay for the bad news), rehires Lewandowski, and then CNN hires Manafort (and then the collective world ends up with a red palm mark on its forehead)
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Hardly. If the MSM holds true to form, then as long as Trump doesn’t punch Hillary, or drop trou on camera, or swear fealty to Cthulhu, he’ll be declared the debate(s) winner. Actually, if he does any of those things, Fox (and Chuckles Todd) will say how Presidential he was.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: I don’t think he is DougJ. srv lives in the Bay Area. He gave me a lot of good tips when I was going to visit SF a couple of years ago. DougJ is based in upstate NY.
Villago Delenda Est
@Quinerly: The UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH troll is reliably a Rethug loyalist, and after predicting that ¡Heb! would destroy Drumpf in an ad blitz last December, without so much as blinking an eye declared Drumpf “invincible!” once his favored candidate was gone. srv is a Drumpf supporter only in the sense that it’s all he has to troll BJ with, I think. If he’s sincere (and he never seems to be) he’d be active now, mounting a losing rear guard action to cover Donnie’s worthless ass.
joes527
@Mezz: Yo do realize that Trump’s cabinet will be his children + Scott Baio + that duck guy. (and maybe Charo if he can swing it)
bluehill
Trump is going to receive his first intelligence briefing soon. Another opportunity for repubs to really put country first. Trump has done nothing to show that he can be trusted with sensitive information.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Don’t forget that afternoon in between when he was on the li’l Marco train. Good times.
SFAW
@catclub:
Vote Kang! Vote Kodos!
Which is about as relevant as Trump/Cruz/Ryan/W/Stassen “what if?” stuff.
Adam L Silverman
So I’ve got the live feed of the Trump rally in Daytona up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhOKv0bPDNE
Pam Bondi, Florida’s AG, was the penultimate speaker. Lot of red meat, metzo-metzo delivery. She finished almost 20 minutes ago. No sign of Trump yet. Wonder how long they can keep the crowd?
Trollhattan
@joes527:
Can Charo herself be transformed into a younger, hotter Charo?
Villago Delenda Est
@Miss Bianca: When I see “BoB” I can’t help but think about BiP, who is to Putin as the BoB crowd is to Bernie.
Eric U.
@Mike in NC: presenting Trump’s top ten gaffes could end up being like the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition skit where you repeatedly have to start over
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: We hope someday that s/he’ll join us…and then the Snark shall be as one.
Quinerly
For what it’s worth, unscheduled delay in the start of this Trump rally in Florida. Pam Bondi did her intro but he hasn’t come out. I picked a terrible time of year to start working from home.?
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think the late-unlamented RtR had a couple of love objects in between Jeb? and Deadbeat Donnie. Of course, the result was the same.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan: He passed through the lil’ Marco train to the Drumpf platform beyond…
amk
@bluehill: Please tell me that peak wingnut has been finally achieved. wtf?
gogol's wife
@Quinerly:
Forever and a day.
Trollhattan
Oh damn, NMFTG Obama is at it again!
I’m loving PBO’s senior year.
gogol's wife
@eric:
Me too.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m also positive that I’ve seen him on another blog (Sadly, No!) eight years ago pushing the same crap for John McCain. (The phraseology is just too similar, along with the general MO of “oblivious spamming with messages predicting certain victory for the current Republican”). If it’s true that political campaigns pay people like this to go and spam the opposition’s message boards, that’s what I’d say he is.
japa21
@Kay: This has been an interesting phenomenon the last few days which will probably increase in frequency. Basically, these Republicans who are saying they will not vote for Trump fall into three categories:
1) Those like Meg Whitman who say they will not only vote for Trump but will vote for Hillary.
2) Those who say they cannot vote for Trump but will not say what they will do instead.
3) Those who say they will not vote for either and do say what they will do.
Mark Kirk falls into category number 3. He has said that he will write in Colin Powell. This is an interesting approach for him. He has criticized Clinton about the email controversy but will vote for a person who will undoubtedly not only endorse Clinton but has said she did the same thing he did as SoS. I think he is trying to keep a grip on the moderate GOPers in the state (yes there are some) and is counting on the Hillary haters to vote for him. But many of them are Trump supporters who will view Kirk as a traitor and might not vote at all. The polls are close, but I am pretty sure Duckworth will win.
Keith P.
@Adam L Silverman: Are you sure it wasn’t Ivanka showing up with a hangover?
Miss Bianca
@Villago Delenda Est: And of course, BiP is (or was, who knows now) a BoB. He may have pivoted to Trump at this point, being that he and Putin are BFFs.
I’m just as happy not knowing. : )
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Dear God…I am so tempted to click on that link but I don’t have anything to play “Believe Me!” drinking game with, except a mango smoothie…
CONGRATULATIONS!
@aimai: My father is a lifelong Republican, Vietnam vet, who thinks Hillary should be in jail for the email server and has hated the Clintons since day one.
He will (and has no qualms about saying so publicly) vote for her in November, as he does not sit out elections or leave offices blank (something he taught me which is a very GOOD thing, I think). Not only that, he urges his fellow GOPers to vote for her as well. Which reminds me, I need to tell him to dial it back a notch on Facebook. He’s not going to sway any of them and he’s gonna lose a lot of friends. He probably won’t listen to me, he’s very big on “doing the right thing”.
He thinks Trump is a threat to the existence of both this nation and humanity.
There’s not a lot of those folks out there…but there are some.
ETA: I am stealing and using “360 degree pivot”. That is fucking genius right there, absolute genius.
Mary G
Betty, if you’re going to continue the flow chart, you’re gonna need a lot more paper.
gogol's wife
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Good for him.
Adam L Silverman
@Keith P.: Yes.
gogol's wife
Not only is srv not here, but the huge infestation of Russian trolls who were here between the two conventions has disappeared.
lgerard
Finally
The truth is out
Shell
Because of the always changing political hoo-hah, I have CNN or MSNBC on a lot. Is anybody else inundated by that constantly aired Recycle PSA? (Can a bottle dream…?)
IIn a halfhour you’ll easily see it at least four times. Good intentioned yes, but aaaarrrgghhh!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: They just put someone on I don’t recognize to do an impromptu raw meat pitch to eat up time and hold the crowd. The doors to this opened at noon EDT. The live feed started at 2:45 EDT. The warm up speeches around 3:05 PM EDT. and Bondi finished and they introduced Trump, but he didn’t come out, a 1/2 hour ago. Not sure what the deal is, but they’re trying to eat time right now.
Trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
Aside from the vile Putalicious blather, having to scroll past yards of copy-paste Russia Times shit ruined more threads than I can count.
Fair Economist
@catclub:
Well, no. Obama won by 4 in 2012. If Clinton wins by 10 – 6 more – even with perfect straight tickets by the flippers none of those districts flip. Clinton’s going to have to win by 20 points or so, with a majority of the flippers voting straight tickets (so not just anti-Trump) to flip a 55-45 district. That’s a 72/84 blowout, with a level of coattails far surpassing either.
Steve in the ATL
@Seanly: has your company ever been audited by the Department of Labor? I’m guessing not. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of salary basis and which parts of hourly basis you want to apply to your workforce, like an evangelical “christian” picking the fire and brimstone parts of the bible and ignoring jesus’ command to help thy fellow man.
If you pay employees hourly, then you can pay them for hours worked only. If you pay them a salary, you have to pay the full weekly salary for any work week in which work is performed, whether it’s 5 minutes or 40 hours or 100 hours. You are always free to pay MORE than is required, like overtime for hours beyond 40 (which can be a straight time rather than time and a half in this case), but you cannot pay less.
Maybe there is some obscure subpart to a rule that I’m missing, but if your employer were my client, I would tell them to cut this shit out toute suite and pay everyone two years of back pay and hope the DOL never shows up. Wage and hour cases are very hard to defend; most of the rules are black and white, and liability turns on the straightforward question of whether you paid them or not. The grayest part of the FLSA is whether borderline jobs are exempt or non-exempt, but that is irrelevant here.
Of course, the downside of forcing the company to change this practice is the likelihood that they will just move most or all of the work to a lower cost country such as India.
Gravenstone
@amk: Just get Troll-b-gone, put srv in it and watch his posts (and replies thereto) disappear. Then you can quit your self righteous bitching. kthxbai.,
Shell
Time to blame the Fire Marshals!
Kenneth Kohl
Not to thread-jack, but this is an open thread…
My nephew just created a petition to get DTrump the psychological care that he appears to need. A good afternoon for some humor…
Anoniminous
@japa21:
If Illinois doesn’t flip we’ve got no chance at flipping the Senate. That seat should be a ‘gimme’ as much as anything can be in politics.
Punchy
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I get to see my pops this ‘kend, and he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Repub, too. Listens to Limbaugh as much as possible. Fox News, natch. But he’s damn good at spotting phonies and megalomaniacs, so I’m very curious to find out his election strategy. I’d be stunned if he actually supported such a clear bullshit artist. I suspect he’ll go write-in. Maybe he’ll write me in.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
There’s absolutely nothing else about this election season that’s been normal, so
I say we give it a shot. The worst that can happen is that the House stays the same, so we really have nothing to lose by trying.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: OMG the comments in the chat on that feed are horrible. “Muslim men pee like girls.”
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I guess the “intervention” – if that was indeed scheduled for today – may be going into overtime?
cmorenc
@Miss Bianca:
My dream is that Trump stays in the race, manages in the debates to say something even more offensive than he has about the Khans and Judge Curiel, and the result is enough of a landslide victory for Clinton (with accompanying depressed non-hard core Trump GOP turnout) that we not only pick up a solid Senate majority that picks off e.g Grassley, McCain and Burr in addition to more deeply vulnerable GOP incumbents – but wins us a turnover of 50+ seats in the House (i.e. a comfortable enough majority we need not cater to any special-snowflake blue dogs or uber-radical progressives to get anything done).
scav
Seriously, is he that needy for dominance that he’s going to be make his audiences roll over and beg now? (or is there a keeping media lines empty and in thrall aspect too?). Arriving late is playground.
jl
@lgerard: Trump has about normal size hands? I’ve been misled!? On this vital issue?
Edit: Oh, right, the whole thing was started by Rubio. Never mind.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Seanly: You’re not alone. We have to do the same thing as we don’t make enough money to carry anyone on overhead.
GxB
@Villago Delenda Est: I keep thinking BoB refers to Brick Oven Bill (shudder).
Plantsmantx
From Media Matters:
It’s not just the right-wing media. I Googled “Obama $400 million Iran prisoners”, and the list of prominent mainstream outlets reporting this as a “new revelation” about a “covert operation” is astounding.
USA Today; NBC News; NY Post; NY Daily News; The Daily Mail; CBS News; The Hill; Boston Herald; Time; Politico…I could go on. I did a search on the same words, limited the results to 1/17/2016, and guess what? Some of the same news outlets that are now reporting it as a “new revelation” reported on it back in January.
lamh36
Hey Betty have u seen this?
The Stunning Hypocrisy of Marco Rubio via @thinkprogress
Tom65
I get the impression that Trump is looking for a buyout offer at this point. I wouldn’t put it past him to take the money and run, and I’m sure more than a few GOP donors would like to see that happen.
scav
@jl: Well, if he were Frankenstein’s creature, they would be entirely appropriately proportional as they came from a man 1 foot smaller. (or wait, number came from the wrong source, need to read down. But they are slightly shorter than those of an average sized man if I remember the first time I read it. And Donnie’s tall.)
amk
@Gravenstone: m$ ‘tech support’? “kthxbai”.
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca:
I’m hoping the intervention will be televised LIVE! It could happen. Dart gun, then dragging him off the stage. Blame it on a Zika infested mosquito. Remember how he freaked a few weeks back over the mosquito at that rally?
Major Major Major Major
So what’s the over/under on Trump calling Hillary a c***?
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: And now they have brought LTG (ret) Flynn out. This should be interesting. 50 minutes ago they said the next person to speak to you will be the next President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Not sure what the script here is.
amk
@Tom65: This.
jl
For those who are involved in the Trump/Goldwater nutso monster competition, I see in the news that Trump is all for changing US nuclear doctrine to nuclear first strike, and for all sorts of trouble spots.
scav
@Adam L Silverman: The FIRE MARSALLS are keeping him out!
patroclus
Obama is hosting the Young African leaders conference on C-SPAN right now. It’s really cool. I can’t imagine Trump ever doing anything like it.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I suspecks der Donald is undergoing some kind of meltdown backstage.
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: I’m sort of rooting for the intervention to come spilling out onto the stage at the rally like one of those whirling balls of cartoon fury, ending up with comatose bodies scattered on the stage like the end of “Hamlet” and Trump emerging from the wreckage screaming, “I AM THE GREATEST!!”, pumping his tiny Fists of Fury into the air to the plaudits of the crowd, just before giving himself a seizure and collapsing on the stage.
But I’m kind of sick that way.
@Adam L Silverman: I’m so glad you’re watching this and giving us the report!
(Could this mean that they’re going to try to throw the nomination to LTG Flynn? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!)
gogol's wife
@Adam L Silverman:
I can’t believe you can watch this.
OzarkHillbilly
@jl: I have small hands- 7 5/8″ – so even I beat the Donald’s. And he’s 6-2? I’m 5-8. Sucks to be him.
Kay
@japa21:
This is maybe getting too attenuated BUT Montgomery was a county prosecutor a long time in Wood County. Wood County is a “bellweather” county in Ohio- hotly contested. She’s exactly the kind of Republican that would be popular there.
SO- if she’s a “bellweather” that’s not very good for Donald Trump :)
Republicans here are like her- the richer ones anyway. They don’t like all this screaming and chaos and… bad manners. I actually heard whiny complaints from them because Kasich doesn’t always wear a tie. “Why doesn’t he WEAR a TIE?” They think that’s a little too slick :)
jl
@jl:
nuke a little here, nuke a little there
nuke a little nuke a little everywhere.
I forget what ditty that melody is from
Mike in NC
@bluehill:
So then Trump will be demanding to know how much we pay to maintain bases in Yugoslavia.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: No, they’re not going to throw it to Flynn.
Adam L Silverman
@gogol’s wife: Being informed is the responsibility of every citizen.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I was kidding, you know…
Adam L Silverman
And he’s arrived!
jl
@Adam L Silverman:
” Being informed is the responsibility of every citizen. ”
Probably OK to admit you are day drinking on this kind of a blog. As long as it is not a regular habit.
Gin & Tonic
Current polling in FL shows Il Donaldo with 12.9% support among Hispanics. Romney had ~40% and lost the state.
tobie
Has anyone seen the TV ads for “Make America Great Pac”? They’re these breathless, direct marketing ads with a male voice speaking very fast and you imagine him saying something like, “Act now to order your home safe alert system. Do not delay. This special will expire by midnight, so act now” and then a bunch of gibberish about various legal things that need to be disclosed. This commercial’s running in rural Maryland. Even on MSNBC.
patroclus
Obama just said he’s gonna shake some hands after he’s finished answering questions and he then said he couldn’t shake everyone’s hand or take selfies with everyone, and they all jumped up screaming “YES YOU CAN, YES YOU CAN.” It was charming.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
There is a now-famous Steve Jobs story told by Ed Catmull of Pixar about when Jobs was negotiating to buy Pixar from Lucasfilm. The Lucasfilm lawyer decided to arrive late in just that kind of maneuver, only to discover that Jobs had started the meeting without him.
Game, blouses.
jenn
@Villago Delenda Est: I always think of Brick Oven Bill. I think that was his name, years back.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: OK, I cant resist…I’m waiting for a report to run, anyway…
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca:
I have watched way too many of these. He isn’t as “jacked up” as usual. He’s into polls and numbers on this one. He’s got notes today. Also he appears to not be doing that weird breathing/snorting thing. He is about to start on a ramble…he just went from the space program to ISIS in a split second.
Kay
@jenn:
Brick Oven Bill was a birther. He probably loves Trump.
Miss Bianca
OMG…”HILLARY shouldn’t be allowed to run because of emails”???
ETA: WTF is he even talking about?
catclub
@Punchy:
So he likes listening to phonies and megalomaniacs?
The Ancient Randonnuer
@Adam L Silverman: I’m watching the live stream. Is this a run of the mill stump speech?
Adam L Silverman
@jl: For the umpteenth time. I am currently working as a consultant. I work predominantly from home on analytical and research work. I set my own hours. Basically I can do what I want, when I want, how I want to.
James E Powell
@GxB:
Misty watercolored memories . . .
Just One More Canuck
@lgerard: I’m only 5 foot 9, and my hands are bigger than his
catclub
@tobie: Kevin Drum noted the simple HOWTO for foreigners to make political contributions to US elections
(hint: establish a US based corporation).
Not to mention donations to 504 ‘public interest’ pacs that don’t have to reveal donor identities.
Trollhattan
@Kay:
Oh yes, he’d love the cut of Donny’s jib, as it would dovetail nicely with stalking immigrants and his Glenn Beck listening parties.
jl
@Adam L Silverman:
” Basically I can do what I want, when I want, how I want to. ”
And you are watching a Trump rally. Whole story getting more and more implausible. First rule is to stop digging!
jenn
@Kay: Interesting. Yeah, I don’t actually remember anything about him other than the initials “BOB” and him being an annoying troll.
Miss Bianca
“We have to make sure that people don’t vote 10 times”
On and on about Bernie protesters…
“We’ve always had the biggest crowds”…
Wouldn’t that be embarrassing to lose to Hillary Clinton?” – well, you’re gonna get a chance to know, fool…
ETA: Good Lord, is he actually advocating for infrastructure spending? Oh no, we’re pivoting to the military and…scavenging airplane parts from museums…WTF??
Adam L Silverman
@The Ancient Randonnuer: Pretty much. Some times he’s more jacked up, sometimes less. He rambles and jumps around a lot. And he’ll work himself into a froth over the course of the presentation.
Dadadadadadada
@Mezz: Trump’s Cabinet will not be stocked with losers who would go along with such a scheme. I mean, come on. The guy had to stock his convention with immediate family and personal employees. What makes anyone think he’ll do any different when stocking the Cabinet? They’ll all be yes-men and tell Ryan et al to pound sand.
I am intrigued by the “such other body” that Congress can appoint to vote on the president’s removal. I think our GOP-dominated Congress might just find it in themselves to pass a bill establishing such a body, though I doubt very much that Obama would sign such a bill, especially if Trump doesn’t win the election (which of course he won’t).
singfoom
What is it with voter fraud and Republicans? Study after study after study and newspaper (even the Washington Post, isn’t that considered a conservative paper?) have shown repeatedly that out of something like 300 billion votes cast in the last 20 years, there have been 36 or so cases of voter fraud.
Is it just part and parcel of the whole fear thing? FEAR IMMIGRANTS, FEAR MUSLIMS, FEAR ISIS, FEAR DEMOCRATS VOTING?
Sigh.
catclub
This never came up when Romney was running. Or McCain. Or Bush. Or Dole. Or Bush. Or Reagan…
Major Major Major Major
Thanks Adam (et al) for watching these things so we don’t have to!
Andrey
@Fair Economist: What? No. That’s the opposite of how gerrymandering works.
Gerrymandering is taking an electorate that’s exactly balanced and splitting it into 5 districts, where 4 of them are +1% for you and one is -4% against you. Now you have 80% of the districts in the state and dominate state politics and, because electoral votes are usually winner-takes-all, get all the EVs from the state.
Heavily gerrymandered states are more vulnerable to wave elections, not less.
different-church-lady
@Keith P.:
Patience — there’s still three months to go.
JMG
Voter fraud is shorthand for only white people, and ideally only white men, should have the vote at all.
catclub
@Miss Bianca:
and the smallest venues – hence the Fire Marshall problems.
tobie
@catclub: Thanks for pointing to Mother Jones. It ends up they did a piece on the “Great America PAC.” This is the name of the group advertising. I got it wrong the first time around. Anyway…it’s so clear from the breathless commercial that it’s a scam. I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to fall for it.
Villago Delenda Est
@singfoom: That’s precisely what it’s about. How can Democrats be winning elections? Only VOTER FRAUD is a plausible explanation!
Chris
@singfoom:
What must it be like to go through life terrified of your own shadow.
Dadadadadadada
@Major Major Major Major: More big donations would push the itemized/unitemized ratio higher, not lower. See how low Sanders’s is? That’s due to all those $27 gives.
Miss Bianca
Heroin!! In New Hampster!! We got trouble, folks, trouble in River City – I mean, Granite State!
“It’s gonna be a border you’re gonna be proud of! We’re gonna have the best people coming in, the best people…but NOT from Syria. Because fuck them.”
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca:
That’s standard in all the speeches I have watched.
jl
@OzarkHillbilly: just found my ruler. What’s the conversion factor again?
Joel
@Fair Economist: The gerrymanders don’t work that way anymore. They’re designed to build the largest congressional majorities, which is done by drawing districts with narrow republican margins and others with huge democratic margins. It’s easy to pull this off in say, Pennsylvania, where the democratic constituency is concentrated almost entirely in metro Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Dadadadadadada
@cmorenc: Except that the debates offer only two possibilities: Trump somehow ducks them, leading to a chorus of accusations of cowardice and unpreparedness, a PR disaster for Trump; or Trump attends them and gets his head handed to him multiple times a minute and suffers a psychotic break (I mean, a psychotic break that is more severe than the ones we’ve already seen from him) in front of the whole world, a PR cataclysm for Trump.
I think we’re already past the point where it literally can’t get better for him.
jl
@jl: OK, it’s the ‘Old Man Trump’ song. Everyone knows that one.
Old Man Trump He Had a World
A nuke nuke here, a nuke nuke there
Nuke a little nuke a little everywhere.
It’s a fun song.
Miss Bianca
“We’re gonna put great people on the Supreme Court!”
“Hillary’s gonna put people on the court so far left, we might as well be Venezuala!”
Jesus, it’s a good thing I don’t have any alcohol – I’d be roaring drunk by now and all the bingo squares would be filled up!
ETA: Oh, Jesus…now we got blood coming out of new whatevers…
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman:
He seems to have notes today. I have had to step away from it. Seemed somewhat subdued when he came out. Pivot?? Keep us updated.
Ryan
“I like people who weren’t captured”?
OzarkHillbilly
@singfoom: the washington post has been denied press credentials by the Trump campaign.
Trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
They don’t call it blackout-bingo for nuttin’.
I want my debate! Olympics not sufficiently entertaining.
Trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Jenn and Krauthammer has a sad.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
This is correct.
Major Major Major Major
@Dadadadadadada: Addressed slightly lower in the conversation :)
jl
@Ryan:
“I like people who weren’t captured”?
Are you &^%!$##!! kidding us? No way. I don’t believe it.
Miss Bianca
shorter Donald Trump: “All that fucked up bullshit I’ve been saying all along? Let me repeat ALL of it while I tell you it was all lousy reporter lies!”
ETA: What is it with this “grovelling” thing?
ETAM: How can someone ranting so much be so…dull?
Dadadadadadada
@catclub: I’ve been toying with Pres. Trump scenarios, and I’m finding myself having kind of a hard time imagining him being worse than Bush, actually. I mean, Trump is awful, yes, but it’s easy to forget how bad Bush was. I guess it comes down to who Trump appoints to really run things, and even Trump would be hard pressed to do worse than Dick Cheney. The W admin wasn’t just incompetent; it was actively malignant.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: He said something like that about McCain a while back.
jl
@Miss Bianca: Oh dear. Like the Gong Show with one horrible dud act that keeps coming on over and over again. And no large hook-like device to get if offstage.
@Major Major Major Major: Got the news from Miss Bianca. He’s vomiting up all his old lines.
Tenar Darell
@Betty Cracker That’s fantastic! I’d say you didn’t really miss anything, but I’d have emphasized that he’s specifically attacked mothers (of both a soldier & a baby).
CONGRATULATIONS!
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’m not sure he understands who he’s running against. He seems to think it’s both Obama and Hillary.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ryan: Really? Again?
Lizzy L
“We’re going to get rid of Obama”? What can that even mean? Barack Obama’s term ends on January 20, 2017, whatever Donald Trump does or doesn’t do.
I can’t listen.
Yutsano
@Quinerly: srv is Cleek’s Law. But for BJ commenters.
singfoom
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, isn’t that just grand. That’s a development I missed. It happened back in June too. Nothing says “strong candidate” and “freedom” like muzzling the press when they say something you don’t like.
Their coverage of him has been remarkably restrained. If I was the post, I’d be posting a story about how Drumpf doesn’t recognize the freedom of the press and is therefore incapable of being elected to any office in the U.S. every single damn day.
But that’s me.
different-church-lady
@Dadadadadadada:
Nukes.
scav
@jl: “The ones I really really hate? Those losers that get killed. That go out of their way. To get killed. By cars! Exploding cars! Running at cars, can you believe it? Losers. With loser mom genes.” There must be some sort of biochemical high he gets from the third rail, or at least it’s a hypothesis.
singfoom
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Have you ever seen Obama and Hillary in the same place at once? Not on TV? They photoshop them together for the TV cameras!!! It all comes together. Never found his birth certificate….BECAUSE ITS HER IN A FULL BODY SUIT!!!
Fair Economist
@Andrey:
That’s not what the red state gerrymanders are like. They do things more like 2 districts +15% for them and 1 district 30% against them. These districts will not flip even in the big wave elections we’ve seen since 64 – not 72, not 74, not 84, not 2006, not 2010, not 2014. It would take something like 64 or maybe even 36 to make a serious dent in them.
In any case, long before we got seriously into the R+10 or worse red state gerrymanders, we’d have an enormous House majority from R+5/+6/+7 districts in swing and blue states like Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan, and Ohio. Control of the House is almost completely unaffected by our performance in red states.
Edit: about the only gerrymander which is like what you’re envisioning is PA, which does indeed have a lot of the critical swing districts; #2 after NY, IIRC
Gin & Tonic
@Iowa Old Lady: Apparently it’s golden oldies day, according to the Twitter machine. He’s back on Megyn Kelly and “blood”, as well as Serge Kovaleski.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
Is he mimicking Kovaleski again?
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: I can’t bring myself to watch, so this is filtered second-hand through Twitter, sorry.
Technocrat
Wow, Betty, this is so good! “Elevator Launch”, LOL.
Like / +1 / Upvote / RT
Miss Bianca
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD DOES THIS TOOL *NEVER* TALK ABOUT ANYTHING BUT HIMSELF??
“Believe me! Believe me!” Drink! (coffee)
‘These are the greatest donors”.
I don’t know how much more of this I can handle…I hope he’s planning to stroke out in a rage-gasm before too much longer…
schrodinger's cat
@Dadadadadadada: Really? After 9/11 Bush went to a mosque in DC to show solidarity with Muslim Americans, Trump would be leading lynch mob instead.
Poopyman
@Amir Khalid:
Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can here me.
Is there any one at home?
aimai
@Dadadadadadada: TRUMP is actively malignant. I’d say he,alone, is worth two Cheney’s. Cheney at least, for all his awfulness, thought that he had the best interest of the country at heart. Trump has no one in mind but himself. And everyone in the world is his enemy–not just certain islamic countries.
singfoom
Yeah, get rid of the Johnson amendment. Why can’t churches engage in political activity AND be non profits?
He’s a nut. Crrraaaaazy
scav
“K-Tel Classics! 20 Original hits from the Only Original Star! Bring back those feel-good memories from those perfect days. All the Billboard Favorites you’ve come to know and love.”
Fair Economist
@Joel:
Nope, that’s not what they did. Check out the Cook partisan index. The gerrymanders are designed to produce the most *solid* majority, not the largest one in a tight election. PA, actually, is one of the few gerrymandered states that still *does* have a lot of swingable districts. Texas, for example, out of 36 districts, has ONE between D+5 and R+10.
Peale
@Dadadadadadada: I think that it will be a little like Reagan’s HUD, only every single government agency will be looted. You see, that to me is the high water mark for federal government malfeasance.
OzarkHillbilly
@singfoom: They have done a # of investigative pieces that weren’t…. very kind. Even after they got…. ‘banned’.
jl
@scav: I have to assume you are joking until I get confirmatory evidence.
Not sure another BJ commenter’s say-so will count. Trolling, you’re all trolling I say! Gotta be April Fool practice day here at BJ blog. Right? Please say so. Please.
seaboogie
I haz good newz!
I was given notice on my cottage two weeks ago and needed to find a new place by Oct 1. In a super-tight rental market (Sonoma, CA) I was just about despairing, but put my specific intentions out into the universe (can be tiny, but want a gas stove, bathtub, hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings, want to stay in the area, etc.)
Just put a deposit on a place about a mile from me – it’s super tiny, but has all of the above, plus private patio, W/D, A/C and even a little dishwasher, all utilities included and Wi-Fi, for just $50 more than I am paying now. My 21-y-o cat is welcome too! New landlord is kind of an oddball, but in a good way. My current landlady (and her BF who is moving into my space) and I are friends and we are all super happy and excited for all of us! Time to shop for fresh bed-linens! Yay!!!
Miss Bianca
I’m out. I can’t take it anymore. Adam and others, who have more intestinal fortitude than I, please carry on!
@seaboogie: Congratulations!
Chris
@Dadadadadadada:
That’s true, given the sort of conservatives we’ve had since 2008, it is easy to forget. And every now and then I stumble across a reminder of the Bush era that almost surprises me in terms of just how terrible the guy was.
But it really can always get worse. Reagan was worse than Nixon, Bush was worse than Reagan. That doesn’t mean Nixon and Reagan weren’t awful, awful presidents who did terrible things to the country. It just means the GOP keeps finding ways to sink even lower.
Andrey
@Fair Economist: @Fair Economist: Where do they do that? Alabama has 6 districts between R+15 and R+30, and one at D+20. Kentucky has 5 between R+9 and R+25, and one at D+4. Yeah, those states will be hard to flip, but not because of the gerrymandering, but because of the baseline of the state.
Trollhattan
@seaboogie:
Sonoma ain’t cheap but is pretty, so congrats!
singfoom
TL:DR Drumpf stumpf speech: “We’re going to get rid of all the bad and bring in the good. Don’t ask me how because that’s secret. But believe me, it’s going to be great. You’ll love it.”
Nevermind the how. Or the bollocks.
WereBear
I still have honestagawd nightmares about W.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@aimai:
No. Cheney had the best interests of Cheney at heart.
seaboogie
@Miss Bianca: Thank you, Dearie! Also – understand your opting out. I’m pretty fed up too and these politics are not good for my soul. Since my new joint is so wee (sweet as it is), I’m going to need to use it a base of operations and get out more (introvert me!). Think I’m going to make good on my resolution to hang out at the beauteous Sonoma ashram as a regular. That should help a lot on the peace of mind front.
John D
@Fair Economist:
That is precisely the opposite of how gerrymandered districts work. They pack as much of the D vote into as few districts as possible, to allow many marginally R districts to be created as possible. 270towin has 51 “competitive” races — 39 R and 12 D. 9 of those D are expected to remain so, with 3 rated tossup, and zero rated likely R. 15 of the 39 current R are rated tossup and 5 are rated likely D.
Trollhattan
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Stop using Cheney and heart in the same sentence, the both of you!
scav
@jl: Why would anyone trust my evaluation of my own personality? But I so think that final sentence would provide a solid in-situ clue.
Dadadadadadada
@Major Major Major Major: I WILL NOT BE DENIED MY CHANCE TO PEDANT! I WILL NOT! :-)
rikyrah
@seaboogie:
Congrats! :)
Dadadadadadada
@Miss Bianca: Anytime he says something horrible and has to apologize, he frames it as him being forced to grovel before the Gods of Political Correctness.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Trollhattan:
For him, it’s just a swap-out component. The old one shrivels up from the evil, he installs a new one and carries on.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: A highschool student would be ashamed to give such a speech.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@seaboogie: First, congrats. That’s a HARD market to be looking in and it worked out better than I ever would have expected.
Second, I highlight A/C for a reason. I’m a CA native, lived most of my life here in SoCal but was up in the Bay Area for 15 years. When I was a kid, if you put A/C in your house even in SoCal people would think you were insane. We didn’t need it, not unless you were living in the desert and even then most of the year you wouldn’t need it.
People talk about climate change like it’s in the future. Well, here in CA the climate’s already changed. A/C in NorCal is not a stupid waste of money anymore. A/C in SoCal is now pretty much mandatory, even if you’re living on the coast, for at least a significant part of the year.
So, congrats, and glad you have A/C, that’s building for the future.
seaboogie
@rikyrah: Thank you rr!!
Dadadadadadada
@schrodinger’s cat: But then Bush invaded an unrelated Muslim country and killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Trump’s lynch mobs couldn’t match that, and I don’t believe that any Congress would give Trump the AUMF that Bush got.
Uncle Cosmo
@singfoom: When I worked at what was in effect a 40,000 employee STEM consulting firm, we were instructed to bill the customer for every hour we worked, while being paid straight salary; the rest went into the corporate pockets (& usually emerged in the form of bonuses for upper management).
My first boss there was a card-carrying sociopath who once threatened a subordinate who had to charge 2 hours of an 80-hour pay period to “overhead:” If you can’t find a contract to pay for your services, maybe we should think about letting you go.
ETA: When bidding for contracts, that company’s official policy was to require its employees to build uncompensated time into their bids, i.e., to work 9 hours a day on the contract but only to be paid for 8. To this day I don’t know why that wasn’t illegal.
Trollhattan
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Yup. Heck, Seattle houses get A/C now and it was non-existent there when I was growing up.
jl
@scav: I’m disoriented from the constant Trumpnado. This isn’t Kansas anymore. Which way is up? What are those clouds doing underneath the front porch?
I’ll find out what the fool really said today soon enough.Right after my first nightcap that I take at 12:00:01 PM these days.
schrodinger's cat
@Dadadadadadada: The difference is, Trump wants to start ethnic cleansing right in this country.
Mexicans
Muslims
…
Trollhattan
@Uncle Cosmo:
Used to manage a staff and fending off ten project managers on the staff’s and my time billed to their jobs was sometimes my fulltime job. Always asked, “How should I bill my time figuring this out?” One of my favorite bosses told me conducting annual evaluations was something I should consider “a hobby.” The rare honest man.
catclub
@singfoom:
This also did not get asked of John McCain: “So you have a secret plan to get rid of {insert horrible terrorist boogeyman organization here}
but you feel no need to tell anyone how to do this unless you are elected?” Do you also consider yourself patriotic?
Francis
@Seanly: If you’re in California, go down to the nearest office of the Employment Development Department (aka EDD) and talk to someone about a wage claim. Hourly wages are owed for your time at the office. They can send you home if they want and not pay you. But if you’re at the office, you get paid. (A little more complicated than that, but not by much).
Dadadadadadada
@schrodinger’s cat: Wants to. Even if by some satanic miracle Trump gets elected, there are many, many ways that that plan can be derailed, from the Congress down to every single local PD. Bush wanted to invade a non-threatening country for no reason. And. He. Did.
Fair Economist
@John D:
Yes, and of those 51, how many are in red states with gerrymanders?
Three.
NE-2, TX -23, and UT-4. That is it. The other 48 districts are from blue states (CA, NY, IL) or swing states where for one reason or another they couldn’t gerrymander strictly enough. Even many swing states have no vaguely competitive districts – there are none from Ohio or North Carolina.
Lizzy L
According to the NYT, Trump’s campaign has made up the funding deficit and now has the money to compete with HRC. Most of the money came from small donations.
Ruviana
@Chris: Four years ago he was at LGM using the nym “Reality Check” which I think he used here too.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Punchy:
Does not compute.
gogol's wife
@Dadadadadadada:
You are rather naive.
Technocrat
@Dadadadadadada:
Dude, Trump’s musing on the military applications of nukes. Nukes, as you may have heard, kill lots of people when deployed.
Stop trying to compare him to sane people.
seaboogie
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Thank you for your kind thoughts. Yeah – A/C not usually an issue here because unless you have one of those awesome view places on a hill with big windows and such, we have “night” which is usually a 30 degree temperature drop, and we manage with blinds and shades during the day and open windows at night.
But climate, it is a ‘changin’!
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
Let’s put it another way — the Dems only have to flip 31 seats to gain the majority, and nobody cares if those seats come from a red state, a blue state, or a swing state.
Gerrymanders are a red herring. If the Dems flip 31 of those 51 contested seats, we have a majority in the House.
sigaba
@Uncle Cosmo: In my line of work we usually build a bid and send it to the client. In that bid is 4 weeks of the boss, 8 man weeks of worker bees, etc. But when we actually do the work, some places actually have the boss and worker bees on 3 projects at once and assign the bulk of the work to gumbies who work for half the billed rate. All extra accrues to the boss.
This is standard everywhere it seems– I don’t do it in my contracts but then again I don’t have the luxury. Some people take the attitude that the client signed the contract and it’s their business to make sure they’re getting what they paid for.
philadelphialawyer
@Andrey: mmmmm…more like split into one district that is as close to one hundred per cent against you as you can make it (“stack ’em”) and then split the remainder of the other party’s voters equally among the other four districts (“crack “em”). The VRA actyuaaly makes it easier for the Rs to do, b/c “majority minority” districts amount to “stacked” D districts. In theory, you can have one 100% D district, and 4 districts that are 5/8 Republican.
seaboogie
@Trollhattan: I’ve lived many places – some of them wonderful – and Sonoma feels just like home to me. Thank you for your congratulations – now that the Universe has delivered so splendidly, I must remember to express gratitude – so thank you!
J R in WV
@Mary G:
Gosh, that’s odd. As a 65 y o male from WV, I would love to be able to pee like a girl. You never miss something that you still have. They won’t be saying that in another 30 years!
;-)
Mezz
@joes527:
Excellent point, and I hadn’t thought of that, even though ostensibly Chachi and Duck Dipshit would need Senate approval, no? That would incline me to think that his Cabinet would be staffed of at least . . . um . . . well . . . probably your list IS pretty close!!
J R in WV
@seaboogie:
Congratulations on the successful grasp on a new apartment with what you need/want.
We’ve been on our place here for quite a while, but I won’t ever forget the rentals, and the bizarre landlords. One asked us to move because we bought a car (1970 FJ-40 LandCruiser) she didn’t approve of, and never asked to play bridge with her. Say What?
Brachiator
@scav:
Under a Trump presidency, stupid Purple Hearts will be replaced by the Golden Trump Triangle. It will be great.
Brachiator
@Lizzy L:
Kinda sad. It suggests that Trump’s supporters are extremely loyal. Nothing will break their connection to the Madman with the Mad hair.
Also suggests that ditching him would be disastrous for the GOP.
NoraLenderbee
Don’t use your brain, McCain
Call her a bitch, Mitch
Keep on lyin’, Ryan