Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The willow is too close to the house.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You cannot shame the shameless.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The words do not have to be perfect.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Early Hours Aggregation/Aggravation Open Thread

Early Hours Aggregation/Aggravation Open Thread

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Betcha Susan Collins is feeling pretty smart right now…

Barely 24 hours after Donald Trump delivered a speech intended to reset his staggering presidential campaign, his off-the-cuff suggestion that people resort to violence against his opponent has him right back in the ditch.

At a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, Trump applied his signature sarcasm to a political third rail, stating that “the Second Amendment” may be the only way to stop Clinton from getting to appoint federal judges if she defeats him in November…

Trump’s surrogates, already positioned on television sets, were left without any plausible response as media coverage of the presidential campaign focused on the GOP nominee’s latest misstep. “Mr. Trump was saying exactly what he said,” spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said on CNN. The campaign itself put out a “statement on dishonest media” that did not even attempt to clean up Trump’s comment…

Official NRA statement:

Guy who ghost-wrote Art of the Deal:


Trump’s running mate:

Doubthat attempts (I hope) a funny:

Reader Interactions

150Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    why do media folks insist on putting “joked” next to trump statements when he’s not joking?

    — Oliver Willis (@owillis) August 9, 2016

    Because the media wants a horse race and is desperately trying to create one between Trump and Secretary Clinton.

  5. 5.

    satby

    Good morning rikyrah! And everyone else!

    What a complete clusterF the Republicans are. Not a single one with the balls to say that Drumpf crossed a line that shouldn’t be crossed.

  9. 9.

    Schlemazel

    @satby:
    THey already lost public funding. To make up for it they have had to grovel for cash from large corporations . . . you may have noticed the difference in their work since then.

    Instead of putting “joked” next to his comments the media shout put “joke” next to his picture.

  11. 11.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

    When is the media going to talk about Hillary’s policies that have gotten people killed, like Libya, open borders, and maybe her emails?

    Trump is right. Nobody ever talks about Hillary’s emails. Nobody. The media has given her a complete free pass on the subject.

    Sad.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    In another tweet from Tony Schwartz, the “Art of the Deal” ghostwriter, he says:

    Trump musing today about gun owners rising up if he loses. My sense: he is feeling smaller and more desperate. Makes him more dangerous.

    Rings true. Trump constantly talks about election fraud now, laying the groundwork to deflect blame when he loses. I expect he’ll double, triple, quadruple down on that as he sinks in the polls. It would be amusing to watch an sociopathic bully’s campaign in a derp spiral if not for the possibility that violence will eventually result from his lies.

    Thomas Friedman actually wrote a good column about this topic today, comparing Trump’s incitement and delegitimization efforts with those of Israeli wingnuts (including Netanyahu) against Rabin, which eventually resulted in Rabin’s assassination. In the final paragraph, Friedman minces no words:

    People are playing with fire here, and there is no bigger flamethrower than Donald Trump. Forget politics; he is a disgusting human being. His children should be ashamed of him. I only pray that he is not simply defeated, but that he loses all 50 states so that the message goes out across the land — unambiguously, loud and clear: The likes of you should never come this way again.

    Yep.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    How about some 8th Amendment solutions for dealing with the cruel and unusual punishment of dealing with, listening to and reading about Goopers in office?

  18. 18.

    Kansi

    He claims he was talking about voter mobilization and the 2nd Amendment supporters. But here’s the tell: He immediately sighs a bit and says that would be a terrible day. Think he realized how bad his statement was. No one, not even he, was laughing.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    Well, that was unnecessarily redundant (#17), but y’all get the sentiment.

    Modified version:

    How about some 8th Amendment solutions for the cruel and unusual punishment of dealing with, listening to and reading about Goopers in office?

  22. 22.

    Kansi

    @Betty Cracker: A big part of the problem is that all he has run on and likes to talk about is his poll numbers. Not much left when they go south. He’s desperate and thus dangerous.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Vietnam sends rocket launchers to the South China Sea

    In February, China deployed surface-to-air missile launchers on Woody Island, dramatically upping the stakes in the South China Sea. Tensions have also deepened this month over South Korea’s decision to host an advanced US-made anti-missile defence unit, a move that angered China.

    South Korea and the U have said the radar system, called a terminal high altitude area defence (Thaad) unit, would only be used in defence against North Korean ballistic missiles.

    But the placement of the Thaad, made by Lockheed Martin, is seen by China as move to monitor its missile deployment in the region. The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said the Thaad plan was an “out-and-out strategic” move.

    Carl Thayer, an analyst on the South China Sea at the Australian Defence Force Academy, told the Guardian the Thaad deployment, China’s construction of military hangars and Vietnamese rocket launcher deployments had created emerging crisis spots in east Asia.

    “Each of these hot spots represents an action-reaction cycle that has the potential to escalate,” he wrote in an email. “At a time of increasing tensions, accidents and miscalculations that likely hold of a clash between military ships and planes increases.”

    Don’t worry China, President Trump was only joking.

  26. 26.

    James E Powell

    @Patricia Kayden:

    The next three months will give us the chance to see just how far – and how low – the press/media are willing to go in order to get that horse race. It’s funny – and I mean sick funny not ha ha funny – how every time they swing into action, ready to promote Trump’s latest 24 hours of apparent sanity into a “pivot” or a change in tactics, Trump drops the pretense and goes back to being himself.

  27. 27.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    It’s a joke in the same sense as when the bully laughs after beating up some kid. It’s an action that triggers laughter in the bully, therefore it equates to “humor” in the bully’s mind.

    We’ve seen this before, many times. The one I remember was a T-shirt with a noose and a reporter (IIRC) saying “some assembly required”. As I recall, that was during the time when the 2 minutes of hate was being turned on the NY Times for “treasonously” revealing the “secret” existence of an anti-terrorist banking program WHICH HAD A PUBLIC WEB SITE AND HAD BEEN ANNOUNCED BY W’S PEOPLE IN A PRESS RELEASE. That T-shirt was designed to make certain people laugh and it probably achieved that effect. Therefore it was a “joke”. And they would laugh if some reporter actually got shot, so that would be a “joke” as well.

    As we have long noted, right-wing “jokes” tend to be missing some crucial elements, such as the joke part.

  30. 30.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    Can we start using the word “fatwa” to describe these calls for “2nd Amendment solutions”?

  31. 31.

    Gvg

    Aside from how bad the comments are, has anyone else noted he invited the Clinton’s to his wedding, socialized with them, daughters are friends and yet he has been inciting people against Hillary for months in violent suggestive rhetoric? He has a history of turning on actual friends. This guy is dangerous to everyone.

  33. 33.

    bemused

    Morning Joe expressed disappointment in Giuliani making excuses for Trump because he has long respected Giuliani and is Paul Ryan going to shred every bit of his credibility by supporting a life-long Democrat, Trump. The convoluted way Republicans like Joe try to stick up for their own more “pure” Republicanism blaming Democrats and Republican sellouts at the same time is so predictable but made me laugh. Joe wasn’t above playing kissy face with Trump not so long ago.

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    @bemused

    because he has long respected Giuliani

    Talk about shining a spotlight on the core of Scarborough’s problems. There is nothing – nada, zilch, rien – remotely respectable about Giuliani

  40. 40.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym:

    As we have long noted, right-wing “jokes” tend to be missing some crucial elements, such as the joke part.

    Right-wing humor punches down. In order for it to work, you have to punch up, as in the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, and Mel Brooks. Right-wing humor is usually cruel, which only works if you’re Don Rickles, and even then…

  43. 43.

    Ryan

    “it’s because he’s feeling impotence & rage.”

    It’s hard to get pithier than his ghostwriter.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    “Hello, this is Ajax Liquor Emporium.”

    “Do you deliver?”

    “Yes, we do.”

    “This is Trump campaign headquarters, calling from the yuuge and classy Trump Tower. We’d like to place an order.”

    “Yes, indeed. What can Ajax get for you?”

    “Everything in the store. And hurry up with that, we really, really need it.”

  45. 45.

    Ryan

    Trump spokesperson on CNN denying Trump should be held responsible because he is “inarticulate at times” and not a professor in “grammar.”

    No, NO. A campaign cannot simultaneously claim both this and that the candidate went to Wharton and has the best words. Speaking of which, anyone else wondering whether Wharton survives in the long term?

  47. 47.

    Immanentize

    Hello, All.

    I just wish that someone interviewing one of the “just a joke” spinners would say, “Can you please explain the joke?”
    “Is it funny to imagine Hillary shot?”
    “Or were you mocking violent gun owners?”
    “I’m sorry but I still am not seeing the humor.”

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    @Immanetize

    By tomorrow they’ll be describing DT as Reaganesque.

    “After all, St. Ronnie joked about starting the bombing of the USSR in five minutes.”

  53. 53.

    Baud

    The Atlantic

    “Character counts.” That was evangelicals’ rallying cry in their all-out assault against Bill Clinton beginning in 1993. In response to what they perceived as widespread moral decline, some religious groups had become aligned with the Republican Party during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. To them, the allegedly draft-dodging, pot-smoking, honesty-challenged womanizer symbolized everything that was wrong with America.

    More than two decades after Clinton’s first inauguration, many evangelical leaders of that era have endorsed the draft-dodging, foul-mouthed, honesty-challenged womanizer named Donald Trump for president. Only a handful refuse to follow suit, including Albert Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. During the Clinton years, he regularly argued in mainstream media outlets that the Arkansan was morally unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

  56. 56.

    one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer

    Did not go for that 5th martini, went to bed and slept well. Woke up, flipped on Morning Joe and heard him talking to Ron Fournier about emails that proved that people who know each other emailed each other with questions about other people, and how that constituted some crime called “access”. Flipped it off so as to not be tempted to shoot my TV.

  60. 60.

    debbie

    @bemused:

    I saw the clip of Rudi defending Trump. What an angry old man he’s become. Wouldn’t it be fun to lock him in a tiny room with Clint Eastwood and watch them feeding off each other?

  63. 63.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer: I was confused as to what the hell the problem was with these new emails that weren’t from the Hillbeast. The State Department does promote US business interests, that’s part of their job. But I guess the guy was a donor to the Clinton Foundation so he is excluded from normal State Department business. Oh and Bill Clinton got more money for speeches after Hillary became Sec. State, nobody had ever heard of him before that.

  64. 64.

    PsiFighter37

    Are the latest emails released worth getting up in arms over? If anything, I hunk it shows that Huma has shitty judgment (although based on who she married, perhaps that was already evident…)

  65. 65.

    sunny raines

    besides being a national disgrace and a disgrace to the human race, trump is quickly becoming the very definition of the thing he most says he’s not: a pathetic loser.

    A more loathsome human being than trump would be hard to imagine; a fictional character as bad as trump would not be believable.

  67. 67.

    NorthLeft12

    I saw one tweet where faces of people smiling/laughing behind him were used as proof that der Donald was joking.
    First, I have no idea what he was saying when that picture was taken, and second, Trumpf was probably fulfilling those people’s long held fantasy.

    BTW who else but RWNJs think assassination and violence against the opposition is humorous? Fracking mole people.

  69. 69.

    bemused

    @NotMax:

    It is somewhat amusing to listen to Joe’s BS, trying to tout his Republican creds while showing his own lack of credibility as he criticizes Guiliani’s credibility. But Joe’s not talking to liberals.

  72. 72.

    NorthLeft12

    @debbie:

    What an angry old man he’s become.

    As I grow older, and the people I know do too, I am noticing this more often than I like. Now, I am speaking almost exclusively about white males, and can’t really comment about other races due to my limited social contacts. Is this a normal part of growing old, that you turn bitter and angry at the rest of the world?

  76. 76.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Between the analysis of “only joking” in this post and Adam’s explanation of hashtag radicalism below, I feel like I’ve learned some interesting stuff this morning. Thanks, BJ.

  77. 77.

    Bruce K

    I may have misspoken about the GOP facing their own Kobayashi Maru test the other day. Right now, I can think of at least four ways for the GOP to salvage this situation.

    Unfortunately, all four of them require access to a fully working time machine…

  78. 78.

    D58826

    A number of GOOPERS are calling on the RNC to dump Trump. Aside from the logistics/legality, I don’t think it will work. ‘Old little hands’ will not go quietly and neither will his most dedicated followers. It’s anyone’s guess whither removing Trump or leaving him at the top of the ticket will affect the chances of violence.

    In the movie Notorious Claude Raines has to confess to his Mother that he has married an American agent. I think its obvious at this point that 35-40% of the electorate will vote to send a mad man to the White House.

  80. 80.

    Bruce K

    @NorthLeft12: Could be a factor of running out of patience as you realize your time on earth is more and more limited. Lord knows I’ve got less patience with the GOP than I did 20 years ago…

  82. 82.

    WereBear

    @NorthLeft12: Is this a normal part of growing old, that you turn bitter and angry at the rest of the world?

    For some, certainly. They were petulant and spiteful, petty and miserable, all along, only now they are less powerful and their ass is kissed far less.

    Once, they lived for their power over other people. Now that is gone, they have nothing to replace it with; not even simple pleasures of the park bench in the sun or a smile on people’s faces when they meet.

    They have made their own hell, and now they are living in it.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @NorthLeft12: I don’t think it’s unusual. What’s unusual is how the right has organized them into a political force. Most movements chase young zealots.

  84. 84.

    NorthLeft12

    @Baud: I found this part of the article amusing/ironic;

    In case you are wondering, evangelicals typically aren’t big fans of divorce, adultery, or out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

    According to my memory and a study that I found

    Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.

    .

    I won’t look it up but I believe the teen pregnancy rate is higher in Christians, as is other out of wedlock pregnancy.

    It’s all about the projection.

  85. 85.

    one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer

    @sunny raines:

    Maybe Ivanka has a spare room to put him and her brothers in after the Trump named enterprises collapse.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @NorthLeft12:

    This isn’t based on statistics but I genuinely believe they divorce more because they marry more. They marry young too. They marry like other people date.

  88. 88.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    @Baud: it’s not his time machine to lend. according to the published reports it belonged to the CIA.

    And right now they’re busy using it. I mean you don’t really believe the Cubs haven’t won a World Series in 108 years. A losing streak that long is not statistically possible. Obviously the CIA is going back in time and erasing their championships.

  90. 90.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Bruce K:

    Unfortunately, all four of them require access to a fully working time machine…

    And only Obama has one of those.

  92. 92.

    WereBear

    @Kay: They marry like other people date.

    Reminds me of Liz Taylor, explaining her many marriages as, “I was raised to marry a man if I slept with him.”

    Evangelicals also live at least half of their life on this peculiar fantasy plane, where all the details are vague and smudgy, their belief in the supernatural filling in all the gaps, and chained processes of logical thought never intrude.

    I have seen the arc of these marriages, and in the beginning they are seeing everything so rosy, and by the end it is all deep black; and nothing has changed a proton; but their perception.

  93. 93.

    D58826

    @NorthLeft12: I seen over the years studies where all of the social anthologies – divorce/drugs/ teen pregnancy/etc – are higher in the red states, esp. the Bible Belt, than the blue states.

  94. 94.

    NorthLeft12

    @Bruce K: Yes, I have a lot less patience for fools and bigots than I used to.

    But I hope that I don’t lash out irrationally and with hate that I am seeing in some of my older relatives.

  95. 95.

    TS

    My Lord – Peter King thinks Donald Trump is more qualified to be President than Hillary Clinton – because – She supports BLM – or some such thing.

  96. 96.

    NorthLeft12

    @Kay: Yes, the young age of the first marriage, and lower income were noted in the study as contributing factors.

    Although, those two factors tend to go right back to the religious affiliation and zealotry IMO.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @PsiFighter37:

    Conservatives have no reason to object to the emails if the complaint is “access”. They literally argue access is not at all corrupting. Their whole argument on regulation and donors and assorted hangers-on is that there needs to be a clear quid pro quo or it’s not a problem.

    They are completely full of shit on Hillary Clinton and “corruption” if corruption means access- they would never apply this standard to one of their own. They never have. In fact, they’ve made a point of waving it away.

    All of political DC would collapse if people who know other people couldn’t use that to advance their careers or their interests.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NorthLeft12: High divorce rates usually go along with high marriage rates. What I see a lot is people making groups or geographic regions look good or bad by focusing on one or the other. Groups in which people get married young, and not many people stay single, also have a lot of divorce.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I love the objection to her connections thru marriage. How many people does that apply to in DC? Everyone with a two career marriage? This is specifically what they wave away as not a problem. You can’t even mention that Campbell Brown is married to Dan Senor without howls of outrage that “she can have a career!” Only in Hillary Clinton’s case is it an outrage. With everyone else it’s restricting their freedom of association, or right to contract, or something. They make it into almost restraint of trade- an offense against conservatism and markets.

    How Andrea Mitchell can complain about this is beyond me. Give me a fucking break.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I just want to know what the rules are. If the rule is “no access without a presumption of disqualifying conflict of interest” the entire Morning Joe panel and all the media personalities have to walk off the set. They’re all out.

    These are The Clinton Rules. They apply to no one else.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Did you see the OH poll? OH has a relation to PA. It’s never “10 up in PA and 5 down in OH” for Democrats. In a way all you need is a PA poll for the whole region.

  108. 108.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: It looks as if Ohio is consistently about 4 or 5 points less for Clinton relative to PA, but they move in parallel. To some extent the whole country moves together, though.

  109. 109.

    Percysowner

    @NorthLeft12: I can speak for a professor I had who taught gerontology. Basically he said people simply become more of what they already are when they age. Nice little old ladies were nice young ladies. Nasty unhappy old men were nasty, unhappy young men. The filters just come off as you age, because you think you have earned it or because age just does that.

  110. 110.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @aimai:

    I’m behind even with my New Yorkers.

    I could wallpaper my entire house with New Yorker covers that I’m behind on.

  112. 112.

    PPCLI

    @Kansi: actually, if you look behind him in the crowd there is a white-haired bearded guy who does a double take. Then he and turns to say something to (a woman that I assume is) his wife who is laughing heartily. They got the message.

  113. 113.

    nonynony

    You know, last week people were saying that Trump was going to be able to recover this week because all he had to do was shut up and let the Olympics take the pressure off of him for a week. I predicted that he couldn’t stand the idea of the coverage shifting off of him and that he’d say something – anything – to become the center of attention again.

    Admittedly I thought he’d call a few US Olympians losers or praise one of the Russian teams or something. But death threats seem to fit the bill as well.

  114. 114.

    gratuitous

    @NotMax: “I’m sorry to tell you this, but the boss here at Ajax Liquors has said that all orders from the Trump campaign have to be prepaid, cash only.”

    As to Trump’s reckless comment, this isn’t one to be shrugged off or minimized. This is a seriously irresponsible thing to say, and Trump has to be forced to walk it back. “Give me a break” doesn’t cut it, nor does a “Sorry if you were offended” non-pology. This is a sackcloth and ashes, public square grovelling apology, nothing less.

  115. 115.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @satby: It’s really time for Democrats to threaten their public funding. They’re worse on Trump than just about any news organization around with the exception of Fox News. I listened to Steve Innskeep this morning basically pretending that Trump’s excuses about what he meant hold water. They’ve been treating Trump like a serious candidate with serious views because “balance” is their lodestone. Until facts are their lodestone, they have no raison d’etre. They don’t deserve public funding if they’re going to obfuscate facts in the name of balance rather than provide the basic public service of giving people fact based news.

  116. 116.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Kay: No, they divorce more relative to marriages, and it is because as you correctly stated they marry very young. The younger you marry, the more likely it ends in divorce. 18 year olds have immature brains, they haven’t even become who they’re going to be yet and that leads to a lot of quickly dissolved marriages (often with kids already–great going, evangelicals!).

    Also, the pressure around pre marital sex means some teens get married because they’re horny, such a great foundation for a marital relationship!

  118. 118.

    Stella B.

    Do we really think that this will end in November? He’ll be beaten and humiliated and he’ll want revenge. He’ll keep talking and the media will keep reporting.

  119. 119.

    LAC

    @Percysowner: I agree. My father is a perfect example of bitter young man bitter old man theme. There were some factors, like growing up in the segregated south. But what that had to do with ruining almost every holiday in my childhood or ruining my mother’s recent birthday brunch alludes me.

  120. 120.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Stella B.: At that point I think people will just point and laugh when he talks. He won’t be able to take much of that and eventually even he will put two and two together and decide to avoid cameras and microphones for a while. Or maybe not…maybe he’s too stupid to know when he’s been beaten like a drum.

  121. 121.

    Kathleen

    @satby: I loved Inskeep’s “comment open to interpetation” weasel dump this morning. Scrrw National Republican Radio.

  126. 126.

    quakerinabasement

    “Mr. Trump was saying exactly what he said,”

    But anyone who quotes exactly what he said is a big liar!

  127. 127.

    The Other Chuck

    @David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch:

    You can’t trust these polls showing Trump losing by 13 pts cuz they’re not measuring who has the most yard signs.

    In screamingly bright-red wingnutty Colorado Springs, I’ve seen zero Trump signs or bumper stickers. Hell, I still see Ben Carson stickers, but not Trump. Just throwing that out there.

  128. 128.

    NorthLeft12

    @LAC: Yeah, but the sad/maddening part of it is, is that they [the bitter/angry old men] don’t really get how assholish and ignorant their behaviour is. They will snort about political correctness and continue.

  129. 129.

    bluefish

    @Stella B.: I agree that he won’t stop. A humiliating loss will fuel him further. I wonder if his children are considering how to handle him in future so that their trash brand doesn’t tank altogether. And by handle I means meds and psych ward arrangements. No joke.

    Katrina Pierson on my TV right now. She’s the devil. Kidding … but sad.

  130. 130.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Other Chuck: Up here in Custer County, I’ve seen some Trump signs/bumper stickers – including one “Hillary for prison” sign – but other than that, nada. A lot of Bernie sticker left over, tho’!

  132. 132.

    Calming Influence

    Hillary’s debate prep has devolved to practicing rolling her eyes and saying “What an asshole!” under her breath.

  133. 133.

    cokane

    Credit where its due: Politico nails the headline. So many other media outlets leading with “ambiguous” or some such muddling of what Trump said

  134. 134.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WereBear:

    Trump. Bringing unity to the country…

    …the same way Tricky Dick brought unity to my family. Dad was an FDR/JFK/LBJ Democrat, bro & I were peace freaks, & we fought like cats&dogs at the dinner table all through Vietnam…

    …but he’d followed Nixon’s career from his first run for Congress against Jerry Voorhis, & so when we gathered round the toob for the nightly nooz & Milhous’ ugly pug popped up, all of us rose up & screamed curses & shook fists: They’re gonna get you, you sonofabitch! “Bring Us Together,” indeed!

  135. 135.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: Ghouliani is an utter disgrace to the Italian-American community.

    Or ought to be. Too many of my paesani buy into the “nobody-helped-us-out” racist bullshit he pushes.

    And don’t get me started on how italoamericani take credit for all the achievements of Italian culture that our ancestors had fuck-all to do with: Nearly all USAns of Italian extraction are descended from emigrants from a part of Italy (il Mezzogiorno) that was (in fact or in effect) a different country (almost a different world) with a completely different history at the time those great advances were made. Whenever I hear the Sons of Italy brag about Dante or Galileo or Botticelli I want to scream, You have no right to be proud of them! Your people were ignorant peasants obsessed with vendetti when they created! You’re almost a different species!! And remind their racist arses that Palermo is closer to Africa than to Roma, let alone Firenze…

    (Well, OK, I got myself going…)

  137. 137.

    Rand Careaga

    @NorthLeft12:

    Is this a normal part of growing old, that you turn bitter and angry at the rest of the world?

    At sixteen I was mystified by the apparent testiness of people in their fifties and sixties. At sixty-four I understand that (1) as another post upthread has pointed out, your older set is afflicted by minor aches and pains that may not always conduce to good cheer, and (2) teenagers are a lot more irritating than they realize. I might add, too, that most of us, if we last long enough, will come to feel in some measure like exiles in the culture, a development which is apt to make a body occasionally cranky. It dismays me when I hear some of my fellow Boomers sounding today like their parents fifty years ago (“And we had real music, not the crap kids listen to today!”) and fetishizing the vanished past: the hell we didn’t lock our doors.

    This election year I’ve been telling friends that while I don’t want to turn into the kind of bitter old man who screeches back at the radio, I’m going to need some goddamn help from current events.

  138. 138.

    gex

    @NorthLeft12: Those guys, in particular, have the entire news media industry telling them that everything was better when they were the ones in charge and now these others and these young ones are ruining everything. And what’s really happening is these idiots who pop ed meds on the regular and are taking testosterone replacements for non-medical reasons can’t face their mortality, so they are very happy to externalize that existential dread as “OMG the country is falling apart.

  139. 139.

    Feebog

    I am not getting up at 3:00 am in the morning so I can watch Morning Joe and be an early commenter. In fact, I wouldn’t watch it no matter what time it was aired on the left coast. But it seems to me that the always to the right of center, both sides do it Tom Friedman OpEd is a big deal, no?

  140. 140.

    gex

    @D58826: If they took action to remove Trump now, his followers would unleash their fury on the GOP. If they wait and let him lose, his followers will unleash their fury on the Dems and the country.

    They have very clearly demonstrated fealty to party over all else by now. So I assume they will do nothing and let others take the brunt of their failures.

  141. 141.

    catclub

    @Rand Careaga:

    if we last long enough, will come to feel in some measure like exiles in the culture,

    I am not sure this was true 150+ years ago. Change (beginning about 1900) now is awfully fast. The existence of people who were alive when there were no planes who lived to see (on TV!) moon landings is maybe a big deal. And it is probably still accelerating.

    OTOH, for the past 2500 years people have been complaining about young whippersnappers and how things were better in their day.

  142. 142.

    catclub

    @gex:

    will unleash their fury on the Dems and the country.

    It is my profound hope that they are as disorganized as they appear to be. or their Hoverounds’ batteries go dead.

  143. 143.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Matt McIrvin: “Under 40 you live; over 40 you survive.”

    “If you’re over 40 & you wake up in the morning & nothing hurts, you’re dead.”

    ETA: And get the hell off my lawn!

  144. 144.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Another Holocene Human: We ought to take a closer look at the stats (which probably don’t exist) for first births by time after marriage.

    My guess is that the most common form of marriage proposal among fundamentalist/evangelical teens in the Bible Belt is You’re what?!?! With a strong second place finish to “No child of mine’s givin’ birth to a bastard!”

    Boy can’t keep hands off girl, girl taught to submit to boy, hot sweaty merriment ensues, baby appears, divorce impends. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.””

  145. 145.

    Bill

    Trump’s death threat is just the latest example of him publicly saying what the Trumpster’s say behind closed doors every day.

    They will love him even more for it.

    And it will alienate more of the “undecideds.”

  146. 146.

    Matt McIrvin

    @catclub: Some things are accelerating. I think individual technologies tend to follow a logistic curve, where they explode exponentially and then tail off into a phase where advances are slow and linear if they exist at all.

    Planes to moon landings is an interesting example: it seems to me that transportation was in an exponential phase from about the mid-19th century through the mid-20th century, but it shouldered off sometime around 1970, right around when Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon and people were taking the idea of supersonic airliners seriously. But in the meantime, science fiction and professional futurism had come into existence, and had all these assumptions about the march of transportation tech built in. Hence “where’s my flying car??” disappointment. But by then, computer technology had already started its exponential phase, which I suspect it is near the end of today.

  147. 147.

    Matt McIrvin

    @catclub: …Socially, though, there were huge things that happened after World War II: the deprecation of racism, civil rights for African-Americans and other minorities, and, the biggest thing of all, women becoming legally independent beings with (some) discrimination protections and entering the workforce en masse. I was born midway through all these changes and it’s hard for me to even imagine what it would be like to pre-date them.

  148. 148.

    bluefish

    @Uncle Cosmo: Indeed. Thanks, Risorgimento! Reminds me of The Sopranos business trip to Naples. Christopher spends the whole time shooting up in the hotel room.

    Rudy is just pissed that his own presidential ambitions came to naught. Trump is an excuse to unload his hysterical ire.

  149. 149.

    bluefish

    @NorthLeft12: I’m an old lady, surrounded by folks my age and even older. No, this sort of unhinged anger is not typical. If is easily found among horses’ asses though. These guys, Rudy and Donnie, can’t handle the truth. That they are losers. Who are losing. Ugly business, the not winning.

  150. 150.

    ...now I try to be amused

    Sweetness, I was only joking
    When I said by rights you should be
    Bludgeoned in your bed

    And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
    Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
    As the flames rose to her roman nose
    And her Walkman started to melt

    — The Smiths, “Bigmouth Strikes Again”

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