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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Open Thread: Grifter Newt Gingrich Thinks He’s Found His King

Open Thread: Grifter Newt Gingrich Thinks He’s Found His King

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“Secretary of State Gingrich” he whispers to himself…

Cranky #NeverTrump conservative:

Reader Interactions

217Comments

  2. 2.

    bystander

    Gingrich reputedly got his doctorate from Tulane, and his dissertation was about Belgian education policy in the Congo. I’m sure he learned a lot that he’d like to apply to public schools in the US. Especially the forced labor part.

  3. 3.

    NorthLeft12

    Is that really all that Deadbeat Donald knows? Here are some other things der Trump knows;

    His net worth; How much he paid in taxes; How much he really donated to charities. And just like his big idea, he will never share this knowledge with the public.

  6. 6.

    Steve in the ATL

    Legal question: if my sister sent various family members an email today stating that, inter alia, climate change is a lie because Al Gore flies in airplanes, that Hillary has personally killed several people (helpful WND and Breitbart links included), and that human/animal hybrid abominations are being created, can we involuntarily commit her to a mental hospital? Or at least cut off her internet access? Can we force to move from rural Tennessee to the upper west side, or Portland, or Berkeley, or some such place?

    TIA.

  7. 7.

    NR

    Nate Silver’s five stages of grief for Hillary supporters re: the polls:

    1. Unskewing
    2. Anger
    3. “Hillary’s internals must have her way ahead.”
    4. Depression
    5. Acceptance

    Most people here seem to be stuck on 1 or 2. Maybe we’ll see stage 3 soon?

  8. 8.

    Pogonip

    I was just sent a headline saying Trump is way ahead in “requested ballots” in Florida. What does that mean? They can’t possibly be having early voting this early.

  11. 11.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Diane Rehm,on her show this AM,mentioned that Newt was at the same book fair as her this weekend and came over and apologized to her for hanging up on her during a show in 2007. Apparently he told her he didn’t understand ‘the whole scope’ of the particular show,whatever the hell that means. Took The a*hole 9 years to apologize to a very pleasant polite lady.

  13. 13.

    Punchy

    This debate tonite is going to be the biggest political shitshow since…well…the last GOP debate. I expect precisely zero actual factual statements from Trump, especially since the news orgs have already said they will not be real-time fact checking. Expect Trump to claim Clinton worked for North Korean agents, Hillary had sex with Megan Fox, and Bill embezzled billions in Medicaid funds in 2018 (yes, thru time travel!) He can pretty much say whatever he wants and expect it to be a “discussion point” on every news show by 7AM tomorrow.

    I expect The Today Show tomorrow to be dutifully debating whether HRC has indeed had breast implants in a kickback scheme involving Romanian circus performers and Zimbabwean legislators.

  15. 15.

    Tegdirb

    @NR: Nate needs to accept his model this year is crap. Sam Wang was just as accurate in previous years (maybe moreso) and his model paints a very different picture.

    Though I know you, NR, would like to ignore that pesky detail.

  16. 16.

    Pogonip

    Trump lost me when he brought in Gingrich, who, although not a pundit, should also be on the Walter detail.

    Not that either candidate cares about losing me. But I’m going to complain anyhow.

  18. 18.

    Steve in the ATL

    @debit:

    Is she looking to re-home the human/animal hybrid abominations? Asking for a friend.

    I assume your friend is Hillary Rettig and we will get a front page post about this?

    I remember W mentioning this in an early speech and confusing the shit out of everyone who was not a lunatic fringe evangelical Christianist. Is this a reference to stem cell research?

  19. 19.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Pogonip: Absentee ballot requests. NBC did an article last week that left out a comparison to 2012. Absentee ballots generally skew Republican. Early voting is where Democrats push, and they’re doing well in NC and poorly in IA.

  26. 26.

    Gelfling 545

    @NR: I do most sincerely hope you are being paid for this. Otherwise your family may have to proceed as Steve in the ATL outlines above.

  27. 27.

    Anne Laurie

    @schrodinger’s cat: Newt’s like eczema. Nothing worse than an unpleasant rash, but after it emerges the first time, you can look forward to a lifetime of intermittent eruptions. Usually at the worst times, because you’re under stress & your immune system goes haywire!

  28. 28.

    Vor

    @Pogonip: Minnesota started absentee voting on September 23. You can go to a designated site and do in-person absentee voting starting that date too. I suspect they don’t call it early voting for a reason.

  30. 30.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Felonius Monk:

    What do you mean “if”?

    Well, I certainly don’t mean that she sent an email saying those exact things, plus several more equally crazy things, at 9:37 am EST today….

  31. 31.

    piratedan

    and in the biggest unspoken reveal, Newt needs to admit that his party needs to ditch the racists and the poor shaming and actually have a thought about how to best govern THIS nation, not that alt-right paradise that they supposedly revere.

  33. 33.

    imonlylurking

    @Punchy:

    Bill embezzled billions in Medicaid funds in 2018 (yes, thru time travel!)

    He used the Stargate. That’s how Obama got to Mars, AND how he got his birth announcement in the Hawaiian newspaper once he decided to run for president.

  34. 34.

    Trollhattan

    @Vor:
    Don’t know when we’ll be getting the CA mail ballots but the election guide came Friday and holy hell, it’s going to take a month just to plow through the propositions. Ugh. “Early voting” for me could mean November 3.

  35. 35.

    gwangung

    @NR: Son, you don’t know enough about survey methodology to be making these posts (let alone the specifics about THESE polls). You need to know what you’re talking about in order to do a quality troll. Y’all just cutting and pasting and not giving a lot of thought to it. Sloppy.

    I can do a MUCH better job of trolling while sleeping off a concussion.

  36. 36.

    Capri

    @Steve in the ATL: No, it’s a reference to GMO’s. Scientists put a human gene or two into a mouse or some other animal.

    Next thing you know, NYC is taken over by large furry mice people with long tails and a craving for cheese.

  37. 37.

    Steve in the ATL

    @imonlylurking: you jest, but my totally not crazy sister believes that Obama is an alien, Michelle is a tranny, and their kids are adopted. As if any agency would let an alien and a tranny adopt. Puh-leeze.

  38. 38.

    singfoom

    @Steve in the ATL: Unfortunately, her disorder is not recognized by the DSM-V so I don’t think you can have her committed. I would just respond and say “Unsubscribe, like you have clearly unsubscribed from reality. None of the things you have written are true.”

    Or if you value your relationship with your sibling, delete the fucking thing and ignore it. YMMV

  39. 39.

    NR

    @Tegdirb: It’s not Nate’s model that paints a grim picture for Hillary right now, it’s the polls. All of them (with only a couple of exceptions).

  41. 41.

    singfoom

    @NR: We get it NR. Hillary is bad. She should feel bad. Her polls are bad. Her polls should feel bad. We should feel bad. WE’RE DOOMED. Did I miss anything?

  42. 42.

    ? Martin

    The Trump Foundation thing is growing. And it sounds like WaPo has a big story on their hands.

    The gist is this: Trump tells people who owe him money to pay the foundation instead. Trump presumably doesn’t declare that money as income and doesn’t pay taxes against it. Trump then uses the foundation to pay off debts that he owes. He claims innocence of the Foundation operation saying his lawyers are in charge of it, but he hasn’t paid any legal fees in 5 years, and the Foundation is clearly paying for things that benefit Trump personally.

    The whole setup is incredibly illegal. Further, by using the Foundation as a tax haven, he’s depriving the public he pretends to speak for of money for services he demands the government provide. He claims the system is rigged. Sure, he’s the one rigging it and clearly intends to keep rigging.

  44. 44.

    Pogonip

    @Bobby Thomson: Thank you.

    Unless you’re overseas, that sure seems early. What if you vote for a candidate and then two weeks later he does something you really hate? (Instead of waiting till after he takes office as they usually do.)

  45. 45.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Capri:

    Next thing you know, NYC is taken over by large furry mice people with long tails and a craving for cheese.

    Bull shit. You know as well as I do that they would head straight for Wisconsin. As a matter of fact, I think I had one of their scouts checking out my apartment last week.

  47. 47.

    BR

    It’s not THAT he lies, it’s WHY he lies. The media should brand Trump as a CON ARTIST, not a liar.:

    The best counter to this is … to portray him as a “con man” or “con-artist” and make it clear that the voters are his intended victims. They are the “marks” or “pigeons” of this long con.

    He lies for a purpose: to screw them over.

    What could make this re-branding effective where others have failed, is that when you bring up the specter of a con artist, you cause people to call into question the very fact that they are won over by his charm, to be suspicious of the very things he does that appeal to them the most.

    By calling him a con-artist, we can make people suspicious of his visceral emotional appeal, and make his strongest asset a liability.

  48. 48.

    Florida Frog

    @Pogonip: @Pogonip: early voting has started here in Florida. Military ballots have been mailed and vote-by-mail ballots hit the post office October 4th. But you can walk in to the supervisor of elections and vote in person as of last Friday or so. Traditionally Republicans were way ahead of us in vote by mail but the last three cycles we have pushed in hard. We are catching up pretty quickly. Republicans still ahead of us in VBM doesn’t worry me. Its nothing new.

  53. 53.

    Trentrunner

    @? Martin: It won’t matter.

    Hillary’s “scandals” (John Oliver’s belated defense last night notwithstanding) are baked in, and serve as a factual frame to nearly all Americans’ voting decision. They have to either overcome it or they accept it, but the view is set: She can’t be trusted, and her scandals show that.

    But Trump scandals are campaign mudslinging.

    The media fucked us by overcovering Hillary’s “scandals” and undercovering Trump’s unfitness, lying, scandals, and herpes.

  56. 56.

    Steve in the ATL

    @singfoom: we typically don’t respond, as there is no apparent way to breach the delusion, but this email chain was started by a close family friend who is (horrors!) a Huff Post writer. When sis attacked Justin Trudeau for his “climate change agenda” I couldn’t resist pointing out that her Bible commands us to be good stewards of the earth. That’s when she went after Al Gore, whom our family has known for decades.

  57. 57.

    hovercraft

    So this is the great “thinker”, intellectual of the Republican party. This is the great “ideas” man? This man who calls Trump the Muhamed Ali of debating. Our two party system is dead. You cannot have serious policy debates with people who think that Gingrich and Ryan and Lee and Cruz are the cream of the crop. Newt, Christie and Rudy are reaching out for their last gasp at relevance, and they are displaying for the world that they are a bunch of has been losers.

  59. 59.

    Patricia Kayden

    @bystander:

    Belgian education policy in the Congo.

    Which consisted of chopping off the limbs of family members of workers who weren’t working hard enough to enrich King Leopold. How quaint and fitting for a racist like Gingrich.

  60. 60.

    The Ancient Randonnneur

    David Farenthold has more on the Trump Foundation:

    Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received approximately $2.3 million from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, according to people familiar with the transactions.

  63. 63.

    Punchy

    @? Martin: Hahahahahaha!! If you think tax evasion or Foundation shenanigans, 2 things that not only the MSM doesn’t understand but who knows the public is easily confused by, is going to sink Trump…..

    It shows he’s a complete con. But that’s already been established and the MSM wont touch that angle. This is a nothingburger in 2 days.

  65. 65.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Patricia Kayden: Indeed. When people who are totally not racist complain about the atrocities that Africans commit against each other, I tell them that they learned all of that from King Leopold, a white European.

    “Long sleeves or short sleeves?” Sick bastard.

  67. 67.

    BR

    @Baud:

    Yeah, this is looking like it fits the con-man narrative I posted just above. Something like “Trump set up a fake charity, got others to put money into it, committed tax fraud and spent the charity’s money on himself. Just a con man.”

    Also could knock him for being un-Christian, since it is about charity and good works and all, but I don’t know how to phrase that.

  69. 69.

    Barbara

    @Steve in the ATL: Is she otherwise functional? Is she enrolled in school or does she hold a steady job? I am convinced that a certain kind of low grade paranoia is probably a kind of mental illness, one that affected my father and currently affects my brother, but it’s hard to see what can be done about it if it doesn’t prevent the person from going about the business of living independently.

  71. 71.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Gelfling 545: LOL!! Needed that laugh.

    If Secretary Clinton is doing as poorly in the polls as Nate Silver believes that should just spur her supporters to work harder to change things around. No need for despair since she still has a small lead over Trump which should be enhanced by her debate performance.

  72. 72.

    joel hanes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    large furry mice people with long tails and a craving for cheese.

    Actual mice are pretty indifferent to cheese.

    If you want to catch mice in a trap, bait it with peanut butter.

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Is this a reference to stem cell research?

    It could be stem cell research or something like xenografts (e.g. putting human cancer cells into a mouse to create a tumor model with known properties) or transgenic animals (i.e. putting human genes into animals).

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Felonius Monk: No, he disappeared. Haven’t seen him since. I did catch a big ass spider with a rocks glass and a cocktail napkin. Spider was released into the wild.

  78. 78.

    BR

    @Baud:

    I think calling him a con man and stoking conspiratorial thinking among his supporters is the way to go. “I thought it was obvious the trick Trump’s pulling — you don’t see it?” that kind of thing.

  82. 82.

    Corner Stone

    @gwangung:

    I can do a MUCH better job of trolling while sleeping off a concussion.

    *coughs gently as I enter the room from behind a Johnny Carson style curtain*

    Actually, if you or someone else suspects you may have a concussion then sleep is the absolute worst thing you can do.

    Cue NBC’s “The More You Know” rainbow.

  83. 83.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: So how was your European adventure? You’ve come back just in time for the most exciting debate of our lifetimes (or so the media keeps telling us). Hope you had a great time on the other side of the pond.

  84. 84.

    Felonius Monk

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    No, he disappeared. Haven’t seen him since.

    Sorry, my mistake. I guess he must have hitchhiked to Sheboygan.

    ETA;

    Spider was released into the wild.

    Did you give him a shot of that Vanilla Brandy as a parting gift?

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: I had one of those “OMFG!” moments last night in the shower when I spotted a Big-Ass Spider lurking low on the shower curtain. Kicked the curtain out of the shower and shook it vigorously (rumors that I was shrieking at the time are grossly exaggerated.) Steeled myself to look for it a moment or two later, ready to dispatch it by any means necessary – whether to the outdoors or to the afterworld. It was on the floor where it had originally landed. It was, in fact, a BAS. But it was dead. I guess hot water in sufficient quantities will do that.

    Only slightly red-faced 18 hours later.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    @Patricia Kayden:

    the most exciting debate of our lifetimes

    MONDAY! MONDAY! MONDAY!

    The vacation was wonderful. I’ve decided I need to do less with my life. Now I just gotta figure out how to pay for it.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    @Trollhattan:

    I have turned to the Kevin Drum method of proposition voting and vote “No” unless someone can give me a really, really good reason not to. There have been way too many badly written propositions that end up causing more problems than they solve.

  93. 93.

    Major Major Major Major

    A leftist on the book of faces just called me a dick for pointing out that Ralph Nader exists. What is it with these people?

    @Baud: I tweeted at him & asked, said I was Baud!’s pollster, so I’m sure he’ll get back to me any second.

  94. 94.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:

    To lay it out for people – our voter guide this year is 224 pages long.

    And that’s only the voter guide for statewide candidates and ballot measures. Each of us should receive a local voter guide for local candidates and ballot measures. It could reach 400 pages total for some people.

  95. 95.

    Humdog

    @BR: @BR: I tell my family that I know they are too smart to fall for such a vulgar con man even if he tricked his way to their party’s nomination. But I am too afraid to ask if what I tell them is actually true. I plan to raise the stakes in this week’s phone calls. I want to tell them I am sorry it looks like so many of their fellow evangelicals have fallen for his con, isn’t it awful? Then reiterate that I am glad they are smarter than what is being reported about people like them are falling for.

  96. 96.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud: Welcome back. Your repartee was missed.

    Now I just gotta figure out how to pay for it.

    I understand that those Gargoyle rainspouts are quite expensive nowdays. :-)

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    One of the nice things about marriage is that when a Big-Ass Spider decides to come rappelling down from the bathroom ceiling, I can run shrieking into the bedroom and make my spouse kill it for me.

    I’m still 90 percent sure it was a giant black widow (its body was the size of my thumbnail). Some “kind” person here linked me to a bunch of photos of black widow spiders to try and convince me otherwise, but they all looked like the sumbitch.

  103. 103.

    SenyorDave

    @The Ancient Randonnneur: Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received approximately $2.3 million from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, according to people familiar with the transactions.

    Great stuff, but he already showed that Trump used $258k from his charity to further his business/personal interests (AKA self-dealing, or stealing for short), and it hasn’t moved the needle. I don’t get it, but people seem to be able to disregard the fact that Trump has a phony charity that he uses as a personal slush fund.

  105. 105.

    Trollhattan

    @Mnemosyne:
    Gets tricky when, like this go, there’s one “eliminate death penalty” and one “speed up executions” measure on the same ballot. It’s a literal death match!

  106. 106.

    coin operated

    Got laid off today, but I’m still on the payroll for a month.

    Team Hillary just got a new volunteer

  107. 107.

    BR

    @Humdog:

    Great!

    I don’t know the right language to use, but I imagine that there would be some revulsion at the idea that he set up a charity and used it to commit tax fraud, buying things for himself out of his own charity instead of doing good deeds.

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud:

    The vacation was wonderful. I’ve decided I need to do less with my life. Now I just gotta figure out how to pay for it.

    You and me both. Welcome back. You were missed.

  111. 111.

    jl

    @Major Major Major Major:

    ” I don’t know what just happened, but Sam Wang’s estimate just went from 79% to 87%”

    There seems to be a fixed sequence of releases of polls through each month that have different ‘house effects/’ Seems to be a Trump surge towards the end of each month over last few months. I was looking at several aggregate histories yesterday, and seems to be true from the always very battery of reliable eye-ball statistical tests. Then a slight to moderate HRC leads re-appears as it evens out as all the polls are averaged. That instability is the price for not doing any modelling of trends and ‘house effects’. Not that a polls only approach is bad, you just shouldn’t panic every time a new poll comes out and shifts a polls only aggregate.

    And some of the polls with major names on them seem pretty sketchy to me. Read Marshall’s breakdown of the USC/LATimes poll. It seems no good for level of support, though might be OK for trends. but others are OK for trends too, so not sure what the advantage of their approach is.

    I notice Sam Wang has a new post up claiming that this cycle is actually more stable than recent previous presidential elections with a slight HRC lead.

  112. 112.

    hitchhiker

    Newt effing Gingrich. The boyo who had the genius idea to stop cooperating with the opposition. The mook who sold a whole generation on the idea that there’s no such thing as good government.

    Can’t we make him shut up for once? For goddam effing once?

  114. 114.

    JPL

    @? Martin: Kurt Eichenwald ‏ wrote an excellent article about Trump’s ties with dictators and the media yawned. Yahoo had an article about Carter Page promising gifts to Putin and the media yawned. Now Trump is using his foundation to avoid paying taxes. Guess what happens next.

  115. 115.

    ? Martin

    @SenyorDave: Because so far nobody has said that Trump is stealing from the American people. Do that too soon and Politico will give you a pants on fire. It’s getting closer to being a fair claim.

  118. 118.

    jl

    @Baud:

    ” The vacation was wonderful. I’ve decided I need to do less with my life.”

    Glad you had a good vacation. Where did you go? Do you remember?

    ” Now I just gotta figure out how to pay for it. ”

    I warned you that you were putting too much of your Baud! 2016! campaign funds into lotto and beer. But some people never listen.

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I’m actually okay with mice and assorted other bugs, but anything in the arachnid family has to be disposed of by someone else. It doesn’t have to die, but it has to go away, and fast.

    @Trollhattan:

    I’ll probably vote to eliminate the death penalty. Other than that, the MJ legalization prop looks pretty poorly written, so I will probably give it a thumbs-down.

  120. 120.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Just tell us you missed us, even though you would have liked to have stayed longer. That could be a winning combination. :-)

  121. 121.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: I’ve only ever seen a couple black widows in my residences – even tho’ they are rampant in this part of the world – makes me shudder a bit to think that I am in closer proximity to many of them than I will ever know or care to imagine! (Same with rattlers – glad I missed the ride with my pack mates where they encountered one curled up on their path in front of the horses!)

    o/t, but I have been binge-listening to “Hamilton”…and OK, I get it. I get the Hamil-mania (and damn, how can Daveed Diggs rap *that fast*? It’s humanly unpossible!)

  122. 122.

    BR

    @Mnemosyne:

    What’s wrong with the legalization proposition? I figure legalizing now and letting the legislature fix details is better than waiting, because the current semi-legal status is a mess.

  123. 123.

    ? Martin

    @? Martin: I would also note that Clinton hasn’t gone after Trump for wanting to raise taxes on the middle class and lower then on the rich. The generally anti-tax Tax Foundation agrees with the analysis. Trump cuts out just enough of the big middle-class benefits and keeps upper-class benefits that middle class household with kids get screwed – pretty badly in some cases. That just came out.

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @Miss Bianca: I actually made an “eek!” sound when my black kitty, who liked to hide behind the curtain and jump out and scare the dog, did the same thing to me one time. I just laughed, turned to mr. bear and said “good one!”. I apparently have no sense of pride left.

  126. 126.

    coin operated

    @Baud:
    If there is a God, he will have to beg my forgiveness for letting that racist shitweasel get this far in the race.

  130. 130.

    hovercraft

    @Anne Laurie:
    Hey, I’ve had eczema for over thirty-five years, it’s no where near as annoying as Newt. Eczema once you figure out your triggers, and the treatment that works best for you, is tolerable, Newt is not.

    EDIT: More like Herpes.

  132. 132.

    BR

    btw, everyone here who has a twitter account needs to tweet furiously during and after the debate, especially with members of the press. Apparently they got a lot of their thinking in 2012 from twitter memes and narratives and that turned into their narratives about who won and lost.

  133. 133.

    Brachiator

    So, have we had the weigh in and the tale of the tape for tonight’s debate? Are they using 16 oz gloves? Is Trump doing his pre-fight trash talking?

  136. 136.

    WaterGirl

    @coin operated: Getting laid off sucks. It’s just a nice way for them to say you have lost your job, the bastards! But at least you get paid for a month.

    Good for you for volunteering for the campaign. I predict you’ll make lots of good contacts that could help you find a job.

  139. 139.

    Patricia Kayden

    @BR: Great idea. Little Green Footballs appears to have loads of Tweeters so hopefully they will be tweeting throughout the debate along with folks here.

  140. 140.

    gogol's wife

    This debate is competing with Joan Crawford in Torch Song on TCM, I hope you all realize that.

    I’m relying on you all to convey the gist of the debate to me in real time. I’ll be glued to Joan’s eyebrows.

  141. 141.

    Citizen_X

    @JPL:

    Kurt Eichenwald ‏ wrote an excellent article about Trump’s ties with dictators and the media yawned. Yahoo had an article about Carter Page promising gifts to Putin and the media yawned. Now Trump is using his foundation to avoid paying taxes.

    Yes, but none of that could possibly be as endlessly fascinating as the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s emails.

  142. 142.

    hovercraft

    @? Martin:
    At this point he’s praying that he wins, because if he doesn’t when this shit comes to a head he’s in big trouble. If he wins, he will be the first president to proactively issue himself a presidential pardon. And the rest of his clan.

  144. 144.

    Mnemosyne

    @BR:

    Because I’ve been voting in California long enough to know that the legislature WON’T fix it afterwards, and then we’ll have two crappy propositions clogging up the courts instead of only one.

  145. 145.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Barbara:

    Is she otherwise functional? Is she enrolled in school or does she hold a steady job? I am convinced that a certain kind of low grade paranoia is probably a kind of mental illness, one that affected my father and currently affects my brother, but it’s hard to see what can be done about it if it doesn’t prevent the person from going about the business of living independently.

    She is quite functional on the surface, though no financial pressure as her current husband has a large trust fund (he’s never had a job in his 48 years and spends most of his days watching Alex Jones videos and cleaning his guns). Outwardly, she is quite the social butterfly. Where she lives it’s apparently normal to talk about “libtards” and the impending Muslim/Mexican invasion and FEMA camps and carry a concealed pistol at all times.

    We are not sure what to do other than wait for the inevitable divorce (she has a short attention span when it comes to careers and husbands). Or wait until she is forced into a FEMA-run reeducation camp.

  146. 146.

    evodevo

    @Mnemosyne: No, no, no….black widows are small (well, relatively – less than an inch across), VERY shiny black with long thin CREEPY legs. You probably had a big ass wolf spider in the bath – probably looking for cockroaches or a drink of water – they are hairy and REALLY BIG – some of ours in Ky are up to 4 inches. One ran up my husband’s leg one time and jumped out of the bathtub – freaked him out big time. I allow them to co-exist because they are hell on cockroaches.

  147. 147.

    BR

    @Mnemosyne:

    Not true. SB420 fixed many things about the 1996 proposition. I don’t think it fixed everything but with Dems + Brown they are actually governing like adults.

  148. 148.

    Botsplainer

    @hovercraft:

    Yeah, that thought crossed my mind – the man is fucked if he doesn’t win.

    We’re talking felony level fucked, and at dollar values which jack him pretty high in the sentencing guidelines, Club Fed level, at least.

  149. 149.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @NR: You must have been just a delight to be arround 9-12-2001 with your surrendor monkey mentality. Close means she can still win,

  154. 154.

    Miss Bianca

    @gogol’s wife: I just watched that – CUTE!!

    Hey, now I’m finally going to get all the “Hamilton” jokes! I’m only like a year behind the pop culture curve now, as opposed to my usual 15 or 20! Woot!

  156. 156.

    BR

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I guess the way I look at it is that the harms of a slightly clumsy legalization proposition are far less than having a semi-legal pot industry with inconsistent enforcement in different communities.

  157. 157.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NR: @Tegdirb: It’s not Nate’s model that paints a grim picture for Hillary right now, it’s the polls. All of them

    “Nate”. Because Nate and NR are friends.

    also, too:

    Farhad Manjoo ‏@ fmanjoo 2h2 hours ago
    Clinton led in every national poll released today except Bloomberg, which is tied.

    Shut up, dummy.

  158. 158.

    Mnemosyne

    @evodevo:

    Definitely not a wolf spider — it was shiny and black and dangling from the light fixture when I turned on the bathroom light. And my thumbnail is less than 3/4 inch wide, so it was well within black widow size parameters.

    Black widows are very common here in So Cal, so it’s not like I spotted something rare.

  160. 160.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mnemosyne:
    A thumbnail sized jet black (not dark brown!) spider is probably a black widow. There are very few black spiders, and that is the correct size range. The only spider I can think of indoors that you could make a mistake with that description is the daring jumping spider. It IS common, but it has white markings that are easily visible, so you’re not likely to make a mistake if you get a decent look.

  162. 162.

    jl

    WaPo published a story with apparently good evidence that Trump Foundation is a little more than a (criminal?) tax evasion scheme.

    This Looks Real Big
    TPM Blog
    [Conclusion] “That all adds up to the Trump Foundation looking like a big tax evasion scheme – not just a poorly run family foundation that didn’t follow all the rules.

    Trump’s best out on this would be if Epshteyn was just freelancing and Trump had done everything by the book and Epshteyn just didn’t know that. Possible? Trump’s Razor actually suggests there’s a non-trivial possibility. But not at all likely. ”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/this-looks-real-big

    If the country dodges the bullet and Trump loses, this still amounts to a huge failure of our corrupt incompetent corporate media. On a scale of the run-up to the Iraq invasion. They should not be allowed to forget it. Both failures should be thrown in their faces at every opportunity.

    WTF were these jackass corporate welfare bums doing during the GOP primary? Nothing but BSing, that’s what.

  165. 165.

    Lizzy L

    Sam Wang has Clinton 307, Trump 231, and the meta-margin is Clinton +2.4.

    GOTV. Don’t freak out, organize!

  171. 171.

    ? Martin

    Martin’s voter initiative guide: Vote ‘No’ on everything that the legislature could/should do except for meta-initiatives – things that affect how the legislature works – salaries, districts, etc. There are some things that voters must do – changes to the state constitution, etc. Vote for them.

    Direct democracy on policy is a stupid idea except where we determine how democracy will work.

  173. 173.

    JCJ

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Next thing you know, NYC is taken over by large furry mice people with long tails and a craving for cheese.
    Bull shit. You know as well as I do that they would head straight for Wisconsin. As a matter of fact, I think I had one of their scouts checking out my apartment last week.

    Dude, they are already in Milwaukee and Waukesha. I am not surprised they are scoping out Madison.

  175. 175.

    patroclus

    Which polls is NR talking about – the ones released today all show Clinton with a national lead except for 1 which shows a tie? Even “Nate” switched all three of his models back to a Clinton lead after briefly showing a Trump lead for less than a day. All in, it’s about a 3-5 point Clinton lead, but if you add the Republican polls, it’s about 2.5%.

  176. 176.

    Trollhattan

    @? Martin:
    The bar for signatures needed to get on the ballot is unusually low this election because mid-term total vote was way down and it’s calculated on a percentage of that. So a LOT of propositions made it straight from the half-bakery. As an example: a rich asshole farmer who doesn’t like California gummint got his pet peeve on the ballot. It would, in effect, stall the Legislature in the fast lane.

  178. 178.

    Mike J

    Portland Police ‏@PortlandPolice 2 hours ago
    If you are planning to consume alcohol or marijuana while watching #DebateNight please do not get behind the wheel.

  184. 184.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @waysel: No. But it is quite likely illegal tax avoidance.

    Farenthold first exposed Trump’s self dealing on the front end and now he has exposed ostensible tax avoidance on the back end of his foundation. Now the picture is beginning to clear up and it seems we may be on the brink of learning one reason why Trump won’t release his tax returns.

  187. 187.

    hovercraft

    @patroclus:
    WaPost/ABC had her up only 2 points, so within the margin, and Bloomberg had them tied. So the media for most of the day were saying that she is still in free fall from the ‘collapse’, e-ghazi, FBI, mishigas. The first half of the day was all focused on how she had to win to stop the bleeding, but she can’t win because she is expected to win.

  190. 190.

    Kay

    Ted Cruz’s public humiliation continues. It’s not just Trump. The whole Party is just an elaborate cover for a grift.

    Trump is just what has been behind the curtain for a long time, and he’s exposing the whole thing.

    Look, this guy is a Wall Street, globalist, Bush-creation posing as a conservative. His wife — I don’t know, she’s like the Stepford wife. I don’t know if she’s on drugs or what. She kind of floats through these events. The whole thing is very odd. I think it was Carl Paladino who was watching one of their campaign videos and said to me, “Did you see the body language in the family picture? This guy’s wife and his kids hate him.” I went and looked and you know what? Carl was exactly right.

    I just think it’s fundamentally unfair that the Republican Party and conservative “movement” are dragging 350 million people to the bottom with them. We used to joke that they were ruining the country. That is now true. They get worse DAILY. There seems to be no bottom in sight.

  193. 193.

    Kay

    How many decades are we stuck with Gingrich? He hasn’t won an election in years, yet every year of my adult life I have to be subjected to this idiot.

  196. 196.

    Roger Moore

    @Trollhattan:

    Wait, is that one where Yes is No, or is Yes, Yes?

    In a referendum (i.e. a law passed by the legislature but put on the ballot by signatures), a “Yes” means to keep the law as passed and a “No” means to reject the law as passed. So “Yes” means we keep the ban on single use plastic bags and “No” means they become legal again.

  197. 197.

    debit

    @Pogonip: Walter is great. I set up some bird feeders and one designated squirrel feeder to try to keep the little bastards away from the bird food. Walter plants himself under the squirrel feeder and waits, because he just knows that someday he’s gonna get one.

  198. 198.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Ugh. It’s not just that they’re horrible. It’s that they’re so willing to let Trump kick the shit out of them again and again

    Cruz is just going to stand there like a punching bag while Donald Trump’s criminal thugs attack his family over and over. it’s appalling. For God’s sake. Go back to Texas, Senator Cruz. Reflect, and try to figure out how your life went so terribly wrong that you threw your fucking FAMILY under the bus for this creep.

  201. 201.

    Mnemosyne

    @debit:

    I noticed from your backyard video that Walter is a Mighty Squirrel Hunter (in his head, at least). You could tell he’d spotted one across the street that had to be glared at.

  202. 202.

    Felonius Monk

    @Kay:

    yet every year of my adult life I have to be subjected to this idiot.

    That’s why I said above that he is more like a hemorrhoid than eczema.

  204. 204.

    hovercraft

    @patroclus:

    WaPost/ABC had her up only 2 points, so within the margin, and Bloomberg had them tied. So the media for most of the day were saying that she is still in free fall from the ‘collapse’, e-ghazi, FBI, mishigas. The first half of the day was all focused on how she had to win to stop the bleeding, but she can’t win because she is expected to win.

  209. 209.

    BR

    Remember folks — Trump = Con Artist, not liar. Liar is weak framing. Con artist says he’s trying to get away with something.

  210. 210.

    piratedan

    @jl: and pretty much discovered by one guy, with a phone and a stenopad doing some cold calling.

    and how many people have investigated The Clinton Foundation, Benghazi and Hillary’s e-mails?

  211. 211.

    Roger Moore

    @Trollhattan:

    Pity the poor bag makers–they have to switch to making thicker, reusable bags.

    I think they’re just going to give up on California, or limit themselves to making bags for uses that are still allowed, like takeout food. And don’t feel too bad for them. I suspect that they’ve made more money continuing to sell bags in the time the referendum bought them than it cost to put it on the ballot, so they’ve made money anyway.

  212. 212.

    gene108

    @Steve in the ATL:

    If you have the time pay her a visit. It is hard to get a feel about someone’s mental health via e-mail, unless you have a baseline of what she is like, when she is cogent and what she sends when going through mental illness.

    My uncle is bi-polar. Long rambling e-mails from him are a sign he’s cycling to a manic phase and/or off his meds.

  213. 213.

    Mnemosyne

    @gene108:

    Interesting history factoid: apparently the current thinking about King George III is that he had bipolar disorder, not that he had porphyria. Apparently they were giving him an herbal tisane that turns your urine blue, so that piece of evidence for porphyria has been discounted.

    The bipolar hypothesis is from looking at his letters, which go from normal word usage and sentence length to very long sentences and complicated words right before his periods of “madness,” which modern historians believe points to bipolar disorder.

  216. 216.

    JR in WV

    @Capri:

    in true fact, I know some furry people who actually make cheese, the best cheese you have ever had, in this country. They use French methods to make soft goat cheese. All different styles and flavors. Wonderful.

    No gene splices, tho.

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