Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Motown is Joe-Town!

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Everybody saw this coming.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Continuation of A Theme

Open Thread: Continuation of A Theme

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Even the guy with the Romney logo tattoo on his face is going, Dude… really?

Also…

Reader Interactions

257Comments

  3. 3.

    redshirt

    99% chance this guy was involved in Gamergate in some fashion.

    Cool tshirt. Too bad he’s wearing it.

    I don’t even have to mock this guy because I’m confident the rest of his life will be misery.

  5. 5.

    Iowa Old Lady

    This morning at the Y, a guy said Clinton had “destroyed” the women Bill had affairs with. I asked in an earlier thread what “destroyed” meant and it seems like not much. But I’ve been sad all day because I’ve always like the guy who said this. You know how Kay is always saying that Trump makes everyone around him worse? I fee like that happened to this guy. I feel like it’s happening to the whole country.

  6. 6.

    NR

    Biggest news from today’s polling: Monmouth now has Hillary up by 6 in Nevada. That was looking like one of the most likely Obama states to flip. I hope this poll is accurate and Hillary is leading there now.

    Now we just need Iowa and Ohio to stay blue.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    Wow. Betsy McCaughey is a Trump surrogate. Thanks again Andrew Sullivan for the excellent spatchcock there.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone: I was going to say the same thing … no true flag waving American would allow “TRUMP” to be tattooed anywhere on their body much less their forehead.

    I mean what do we think they are completely stupid losers or something ?? Sad!

  17. 17.

    patrick II

    “I was sick and tired of people making fun of me for supporting Trump,”

    The tattoo will surely fix that.

  19. 19.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    From: Hillary Clinton Campaign 2016
    To: Prospective Employer

    To whom it may concern,

    We received your request for a reference for Donald Trump. We understand that since losing the election last year, due to all of the legal and other attention that his businesses received during the campaign, Trump’s businesses completely collapsed and he has now applied for a job with your firm. We do feel a certain responsibility for this and thus would be happy to supply the reference.

    No one worked harder for the Clinton-Kaine Campaign than Donald Trump. Every assignment we gave him he responded to swiftly and with great vigor. Whether it was attacking a family who’d lost a son in combat, attacking a beauty pageant contestant and a Latina immigrant, Donald took on these tasks without even being explicitly told to do so, seeming to be able to intuitively sense what it was our campaign most wanted and then going above and beyond the normal effort including working at all hours of the day and night to fulfill our every expectation.

    After more than a year of working closely with him we can honestly say that if you can get Donald Trump to apply maturity and intelligence to the work that he does for you, you’ll be very lucky indeed.

    We wish you both the best.

  23. 23.

    CaseyL

    It’s the Serenity shirt that really seals the deal. Just puts the rotten cherry atop the shit sundae.

  24. 24.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    had a comment landed in moderation for stating basic facts about Donald Trump prawn movie.

    Two twin girls rubbing honey over nude bodies. In other words, a movie from island of Lesbos.

    Family values!

  32. 32.

    scav

    @patrick II:

    “I was sick and tired of people making fun of me for supporting Trump,”

    GSD the logical clarity of mind that leads to supporting Trump just shines gloriously in that statement.

  36. 36.

    TriassicSands

    @patrick II:

    His family no longer thinks he’s not serious and they aren’t making fun of him — they think he’s insane. Thanksgiving dinner should be a hoot — imagine staring across the table at that and trying to eat. Of course, if Trump loses, Mr. Campbell probably won’t be available for family gatherings for some time.

  39. 39.

    Patricia Kayden

    @NR: YAY!! Great news. I doubt Trump’s twitter storm telling people to search out porn videos is going to help him with women (or Latino) voters. Hopefully, the polls will continue to trend Secretary Clinton’s way.

    P.S. Secretary Clinton should invite Miss Universe to the next debate. That would spook the hell out of Trump.

  46. 46.

    Shana

    Of course the guy’s from Peoria. The joke city of Illinois. I speak as a former resident of the state.

  47. 47.

    theturtlemoves

    Why are so many douchebags Firefly fans? As someone with a Serenity logo and Firefly ship badge on the saddlebag of my motorcycle, I’d really prefer not to be associated with this pudgy neckbearded freakshow.

  52. 52.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud:

    Should have gotten a Baud! tattoo.

    I thought you were only allowed to have a Baud tattoo put on your ass. Part of the Buttocks for Baud campaign.

    Of course the dude pictured above is an ass, so it could be anywhere on him.

  53. 53.

    Corner Stone

    This reverse mortgage thing. I’m seeing it repped by solid RWNJ actors that I love from cheesy ’80s et al shows. Maybe I should go for it?

  57. 57.

    different-church-lady

    You know what’s really sad? Another human being said, “Yeah, I’ll do that for you!”

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @Patricia Kayden: Had CBS News on in background. Scott Pelley informed his viewers that Donald Trump is the first to suggest his supporters go to a po rn site.

    And it’s still September.

  61. 61.

    different-church-lady

    someone on a non-political board just posted a link to the Machado debate moment on YouTube, with the comment, “The moment Hillbags corrupted The Donald’s rootkit.”

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Maggie HabermanVerified account
    ‏@ maggieNYT
    “Whitewater, the cattle – remember the cattle?” Trump

    we’re gonna follow the money back to drudge report screen shot from 1993

  63. 63.

    scav

    @Shana: Oh that is funny and I’m pretty sure I had relatives that lived there (or if they didn’t, they should have and we’re in the damn close environs).

    (on the upside, even people in freaking Peoria where apparently mocking him even before this!)

  66. 66.

    Robert Sneddon

    @theturtlemoves: The “good guys” in Firefly and Serenity are associated with brave rebel types like Quantrill’s Raiders and other irregular Confederate patriot militias fighting against the forces of the Federal government during the Second Treasonous Slaveholders Rebellion.

  67. 67.

    theturtlemoves

    @redshirt: Yeah, I get why they latch onto it. It just disappoints me horribly because I really loved that show. So, my question was more of a rhetorical lament than a legitimate inquiry.

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    That guy with the forehead tattoo has the same expression as a dog that knows it looks ridiculous.

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    @theturtlemoves:

    Why are so many douchebags Firefly fans?

    They are essentially thieves and mercenaries. They don’t take on River and her brother out of the goodness of a larger, more well rounded society.

  72. 72.

    Felonius Monk

    If this idiot is so happy to have his sweetheart’s name tattooed on his noggin, why isn’t he smiling? Or did he just look in the mirror and say, “WTF?”

  77. 77.

    FlyingToaster

    @Robert Sneddon: Last spring, I took my then 8-year-old daughter to the Jesse James Homstead & Museum; the tour starts with a movie about the life-n-times, including Quantrill’s Raiders.

    As we were looking at the artifacts, she told me, “Mom, these guys were basically just terrorists, right?”

    I should note, having spent my adolescence in Clay County, both sides were basically terrorists. It was less to do with the national politics by the late 1850s and more to do with bombing and lynching members of the “other” tribe. It itensified during the Civil War, as the troops weren’t there anymore to keep the peace.

  79. 79.

    theturtlemoves

    @Major Major Major Major: As a fan of both Firefly and Rush (the Canadian power trio, by all that is holy, not the pill-popping radio bigot), let me assure you I am well-versed in maintaining a safe distance from many of my fellow travelers.

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Hasn’t Nate Silver been a bit bed-wettery this cycle

    Nate Silver NateSilver538 7h7 hours ago
    There have been 11 post-debate polls in swing states so far and Clinton’s led in all 11. Something’s definitely changed…

    Let’s hope so.

    @Trollhattan: I am also somewhat stuck in the past. I was trying to figure out what cattle had to do with Al and Peggy.

  82. 82.

    redshirt

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: What do you mean, “no”? That’s an ethic.

    If I were in charge, tattoo artists would also have basic counseling skills and would be required to discuss the proposed tattoo with the client before beginning.

    “Are you really sure you want a full arm sleeve of Barney Fife? Does this fulfill some dream or longing you’ve had?”

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: That is a hideous tie. And as a guy with an 18 inch neck, I gotta tell you he needs to have the collars on his fitted shirts fitted better.

  86. 86.

    Mister Forkbeard

    @Trollhattan: From what I remember, Hillary made a very statistically unlikely profit on cattle futures back in the… 70s? There’s a suspicion that she got insider trading info from someone, but no proof.

    This is one of the weirder theories about her, given the amount of money made was pretty small, comparatively speaking.

  87. 87.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @redshirt:

    If I were in charge, tattoo artists would also have basic counseling skills and would be required to discuss the proposed tattoo with the client before beginning.

    I read the autobiography of a woman who works in the adult entertainment industry. She loved, I mean loved, ‘Hello Kitty’ as a teen and almost got that as her first tat. She’s glad she had second thoughts about that one.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mister Forkbeard: It also had nothing to do with the Whitewater Savings and Loan in which she and President Clinton were victims of a scheme to defraud. Despite the initial allegations, and the execrable reporting by the NY Times, they were two of the victims in the Whitewater Savings and Loan crime, not the perpetrators.

  89. 89.

    bobbo

    I’ve long wondered why he haven’t seen more of Palin. I suppose everyone thinks she’s toxic, but my God, is there anyone associated with Trump who isn’t?

  91. 91.

    theturtlemoves

    And in fairness to Firefly, this is also the kind of guy who I’m sure fantasizes he’d be Rick Grimes when there’s a much higher likelihood he’d be Walker #47 trudging through the background right before he gets a crossbow bolt to the melon.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    Help. I am trapped under a 15-pound cat and can’t get up to finish my errands. Reduced to typing with one finger. If I move the arm she’s laying on, she bites me.

  93. 93.

    redshirt

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Heh. I was a rock n’ roll reporter for a while and I traveled with a band to this rock festival that was also like a fair in that there were lots of food booths and arts and crafts and oh yeah, a tattoo artist.That night everyone gets wasted and the next morning the bassist wakes up and starts swearing really loudly: “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

    He had a new forearm tattoo he had no memory of getting – a Fritz the Cat type drawing with X’d out eyes holding a jug of XXXX moonshine. No colors, just black lines. It was terrible.

    Everyone laughed.

  98. 98.

    Mister Forkbeard

    @Adam L Silverman: Yep. I mean, Whitewater is a gimme. There’s nothing there at all – the Clintons LOST money on it and didn’t do anything wrong.

    The cattle-futures one is weird, because it’s super old, resulted in a fairly small profit, and no one’s ever been able to prove anything untoward about it. It’s another article of faith that she did something wrong, and once again there doesn’t appear to be much to it.

  100. 100.

    gf120581

    @Major Major Major Major: Silver’s problem was that he blew Trump’s victories in the GOP primaries and I think that’s made him skittish about being wrong again, even though anyone with basic math skills knows the difference between the GOP primary vote and the GE vote.

    Also, he’s a bit too obsessed with getting eyeballs to his site. All about the clickbait now.

  101. 101.

    Felonius Monk

    @Mnemosyne:

    “Mom, I told you that you weren’t the boss of me! So there!”

    And Mom said: “Don’t ever come out of the basement when we have guests in the house.”

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I can’t remember if you were around when I said this, but it turns out that if you want a reservation for 1 at THE Steakhouse, you can get pretty much any time you want. Thanks again for the rec — I’ll try to check in after I eat there tomorrow night.

  104. 104.

    Major Major Major Major

    @gf120581: silver’s problem is that his model is bad. Nothing that fluctuates that much when the polls more or less haven’t changed since February has any business calling itself a prediction. And no, I’m not referring to the now-cast.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “Go harass people at a different polling place.” What can possibly go wrong?

    ‏@ kenvogel
    Here’s the full Trump riff on voter fraud from this evening in Novi. Mich., in which he urges his supporter to monitor polling places.

  116. 116.

    divF

    @Mnemosyne: Shall we send help?

    You might invest in one of those Medical Alert devices for just these circumstances.

    – divF (from 36000′ above Madison, Wisconsin, heading west)

  118. 118.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Corner Stone:

    Shut the fuck up Tweety and let a guest actually answer a GD question for a fucking change.

    Good luck, that’ll never happen.

    I’m not watching/listening and don’t even know who his guest is, but he makes me fucking crazy with the sputtering and interruptions. I almost felt sorry for Gary Johnson the other night. Okay, not really, but close.

  122. 122.

    Francis

    @Trollhattan: There’s a wiki page on the Hillary Cattle Straddle that goes into some detail. While she definitely had real money at stake, she may have been essentially free-riding on larger trading being done by real professionals (who wanted to have a good relationship with the Governor).

  123. 123.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Mnemosyne:

    O/T, when do you leave for Vegas (or is it Reno?)?

    Have a good safe trip, register lots of HRC voters, and knit lots of Tiny Hillarys.

  133. 133.

    Mike J

    Today in Seattle:

    Man in Trump mask with a doll labeled “Hillary Clinton” strapped to his front, strolled through the Pike Place Market, thrusting and yelling, “rape!”

    He felt water dripping down his back, turned and saw a woman with an empty water pitcher walking away. He called the cops, claiming the clerk at an archaist bookstore poured water on him. She said she had called Market security, but denied pouring water on him.

    No witnesses could be found.

  138. 138.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mike J:

    He felt water dripping down his back

    Being that it’s Seattle, it could have just been raining. I’ve heard it rains there sometimes.

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Katie Tur on Hayes just now: Trump campaign not answer the phone, rumors that Trump has warned there’ll be hell to pay if anyone says anything negative about his debate performance.

    ETA: She’s walking on eggshells to talk about racism and misogyny and ISlamophobia as things people might see in the Trump campaign.

  149. 149.

    Ruckus

    @Felonius Monk:

    And Mom said: “Don’t ever come out of the basement when we have guests in the house.”

    And Mom said: “You are moving out tomorrow. 27 is old enough to be on your own. Ask your new best friend for money, I’m sure he’d support you.”
    Fixed it for you.

  150. 150.

    CZanne

    @theturtlemoves: it appeals to the glibertarian wing of fandom. Also to the ammosexual wing. And the Sad/Rabid Puppy wing. SF has been moving towards more open, more multicultural, more diverse, and that’s making the fans of steely eyed missile men lotharios feel left out because only 80% of SF is marketed directly at them instead of 99+%. Joss Whedon was one of the first major “feminist” genre makers (though his feminism is problematic and often has major blind spots) so being a devotee of one of his properties makes these “NiceGuy(TM)”s think they have some feminist credits. (NOPE.)

  153. 153.

    Lizzy L

    Thank you for this. It’s been a hard day, and I really needed the laugh. I wonder how old that bro is?

    @NR: From what I can see, Iowa is red, Ohio has tipped red, Florida, Nevada, and North Carolina are blue. It appeared that Clinton had pretty much pulled out of Ohio, but she’s going to be campaigning there on Monday, so maybe the research on the ground is telling her there’s a chance it will tip back blue. That’d be lovely.

  156. 156.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

    ………………………………….

    GOP Blocks Probes Into Trump-Russia Ties

    Russian hackers are apparently trying to mess with our elections. But congressional Republicans are crippling any investigations—while their probes of Hillary Clinton continue.
    09.30.16 1:15 AM ET

    Suspicion is mounting about Donald Trump’s ties to Russian officials and business interests, as well as possible links between his campaign and the Russian hacking of U.S. political organizations. But GOP leaders have refused to support efforts by Democrats to investigate any possible Trump-Russia connections, which have been raised in news reports and closed-door intelligence briefings. And without their support, Democrats, as the minority in both chambers of Congress, cannot issue subpoenas to potential witnesses and have less leverage to probe Trump.

    Privately, Republican congressional staff told The Daily Beast that Trump and his aides’ connections to Russian officials and businesses interests haven’t gone unnoticed and are concerning. And GOP lawmakers have reviewed Democrats’ written requests to the FBI that it investigate Trump before they were made public.

  158. 158.

    Dmbeaster

    @Adam L Silverman:

    : It also had nothing to do with the Whitewater Savings and Loan in which she and President Clinton were victims of a scheme to defraud.

    Whitewater was a real estate venture that failed. It was speculation in vacation property (a large parcel subdivided into lots for sale) that had the misfortune of coming online around 1980, when interest rates hit 20% and no one was buying. The land had been acquired with a loan and the partners (Clintons and McDougals) could not carry the negative cash flow long term. The Clintons were passive investors, and McDougal had the real estate expertise. The land was resold in bulk with the venture losing money. The Clintons were not defrauded. Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan was owned by the Clinton’s Whitewater partner, James McDougal, which failed because of McDougal’s wrondoing. It was not related to Whitewater.

    There was never anything improper about Whitewater, despite the dark bogus insinuations from the New York Times. What has been interesting is all of the other crap uncovered about wrongdoing in Arkansas by other people as a result of Whitewater scrutiny. McDougal and the S&L (Castle Grande deal and other irregularities that killed the S&L). Hubbel at the Rose Law Firm where Hillary had worked (billing fraud and cheating his law partners). David Hale, the crooked municipal judge. Jim Guy Tucker, former govenor of Arkansas. A lot of bad behavior.

    Since we are revisiting this nonsense, gotta keep the labels straight.

  160. 160.

    Cacti

    The right wing San Diego Union-Tribune has endorsed Clinton.

    First endorsement of a Dem Presidential candidate in the paper’s history (published since 1868).

  162. 162.

    Soylent Green

    It occurs to me that many voters got their first look at Trump on Monday. These folks don’t watch cable news and their FB friends don’t discuss politics. Many must have said “geez this man is rude. Didn’t his mama ever teach him how to behave?”

  163. 163.

    hovercraft

    Written by Michelle Vitali, a Professor of Art at Edinburg University, in Pennsylvania.

    “Imagine a woman who showed up [to a presidential debate] unprepared, sniffling like a coke addict and interrupting her opponent 70 times. Let’s further imagine that she had 5 kids by 3 men, was a repeated adulterer, had multiple bankruptcies, paid zero federal taxes and rooted for the housing crisis in which many thousands of families lost their homes. Wait… there’s more: she has never held any elected office in her life.”

    Go read her whole facebook post at GOS.

  166. 166.

    Wapiti

    @p.a.:

    Who’s going to sneak in and take tRump’s phone after he falls asleep tonight?

    My working theory is that Melania is the one sneaking the phone to him.

  169. 169.

    SenyorDave

    @Lizzy L: @rikyrah: Russian hackers are apparently trying to mess with our elections. But congressional Republicans are crippling any investigations—while their probes of Hillary Clinton continue.

    Maybe our media can do their jobs and look into it. Although these days our investigative media as it relates to the presidential election seems to consist entirely of David Fahrenthold and Kurt Eichenwald. These guys are doing amazing jobs.

  170. 170.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Tom Brokaw just delivered a false equivalency commentary on the Monday debate.

    End him, NBC. He’s worthless.

  172. 172.

    Anne Laurie

    @bobbo:

    I’ve long wondered why he haven’t seen more of Palin. I suppose everyone thinks she’s toxic, but my God, is there anyone associated with Trump who isn’t?

    She & Donald took a big meeting sometime during the primaries, when she was planning to endorse him. I think they came to a mutual decision — neither one trusts the other enough to cooperate. He thinks she’d take attention away from his glorious self, and she thinks that he won’t pay her fees up front, cash or certified EMT only.

  174. 174.

    Adam L Silverman

    @p.a.: Remember Ivanka and her husband Jared are offline through tomorrow night because its the Jewish Sabbath. And they’re shomer shabbos (guard the sabbath). And Rosh Hashana starts Sunday night and they’ll be offline again from then through Tuesday night. So that moderating influence is basically not functioning for the next four days.

  189. 189.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gf120581: Even in previous election cycles, Silver’s model was always over-hedged. His election-eve results were way too good for the error bars he put on them.

  190. 190.

    Elie

    Trump is gonna be in the sewer and probably stay there. Hilz has to stay out of the sewer with him. At some point she just has to let this shit settle on him and let others do the wet work and just be quiet. I have no doubt that this is not the end of it… there will be plenty plenty more but it has to be carefully managed from her perspective — both to avoid the shit stain and to stop short of eliciting some sort of sympathy response. She has to be on her guard… willing of course to do battle — but REAL battle where possible that has less to do with going toe to toe with him on slime. Just my thoughts anyway. The man is very very sick. Whether there will be a crisis for him on this, I don’t know, but the man is not well.

  191. 191.

    planetjanet

    OMG, I need brain bleach. After all the talk of sex tapes today. Via the Guardian, Buzzfeed is reporting that Trump was in a softcore porn film. It was cameo, simply breaking a champagne bottle on a limo. I don’t want to hear more.

    The link is not showing up.

  199. 199.

    planetjanet

    The projection is of astronomical dimensions with this guy. As Atrios says, anyone writing up this election as a novel would be thrown out of the publisher’s office as a loon.

  200. 200.

    Elie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    This will have to be one of the most intriguing books evah, after the election — (praying he doesn’t win)

    The US is in some sort of cage bout… We have completely lost the thread in every way that this — this — person can even be thinking about this goal. How do we get this out of our memory? How do we recover from this deep shame? Its a civil war without being labeled such… and yet the results in November will not point to an easy path afterwards…Even in the Civil War, the south was not led by insane people ( well maybe Bedford Forrest, but he was a general). How do we end up working with this?

  202. 202.

    Baud

    @Elie: Agree. This election will be a fascinating read, assuming Trump loses.

    Nothing will be the same afterwards, regardless of who wins.

  206. 206.

    Elie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I know you are right about her, yet I worry about our country — in some ways more brittle. The terms of the battle are so so mean and down in the gutter and the terms for winning are continually evolving to a lower and lower denominator. How do we keep it from just destroying our ability to be together after as some sort of whole? Like fights with husbands and wives — you can damage beyond repair with fights that leave an emotional memory too hard to overcome… Trump fell into a void in our system that could not be addressed easily since our political competitiveness and exploitive media teamed with social IT — could make lasting wounds not easily fixed. I am not sure how HIlz can address but we are in the eye of the hurricane — not the end. The worst part of the storm is ahead, not behind. Like Katrina, we had better be ready for the after… We do not have the emotional and systemic experience with this. We have never had to deal with a mentally unfit person with a large following in a society filled with guns, the propensity for violence, economic and social disparity and lightning communications.

  207. 207.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: No. I was reading through Josh Marshall’s twitter feed and the pic was in there in a thread dealing with Trump’s remarks about 12 year old Paris Hilton on Howard Stern’s show.

  210. 210.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sigaba: Since you can’t ever actually turn off an iPhone or iPad, I really don’t see how you’d be breaking the Sabbath anyway… The whole manner in which the laws pertaining to the Sabbath have been (mis)interpreted for 20th and 21st Century applications are what they are. As for this mess, the kids are, basically, hostages to their father. They and whatever business interests they have themselves have no value apart from their father’s name. I’m sure they’ve all learned over the years how to maneuver him so that they are physically and emotionally protected (I once had a boss like Trump and his wife and daughter were masters at doing this) even as they couldn’t admit that there is anything wrong with him.

  211. 211.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: If you watch the speech where he laid out his women’s issues policies, you may have noticed that when he and Ivanka hit their marks on the podium she paused, waited to see where he actually stopped, then moved herself out of arms reach. There is something seemingly very, very strange, and sad, about his relationship with Ivanka and I think it says something that Marla Maples took herself and Tiffany across the US to California when they divorced. She wasn’t an actress – aspiring or established, she wasn’t modeling or attempting to (and if she had NY, Miami, London, Paris, and/or Milan would have made more sense). Given the divorce settlement she could have lived anywhere and yet she chose to literally put a continent between him and their daughter.

  212. 212.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Davebo: Brokaw seems to think that the issue of “who can bring us together” is more important than “Drumpf is a fascist shit”. There is NO QUESTION that he’s utterly unqualified, but Brokaw still thinks Hillary has not “made her case”.

    Utterly worthless Broderism.

  213. 213.

    Elie

    @Baud:

    My sense is that the sewer dump on him is just beginning. There is a payoff, I guess, but not without a potentially huge cost at the end. Hilz needs to win not destroy him — and by extension, the people who over-identify with him. Its tricky. I have no doubt that there is a mountain of shit on this very disturbed person. If we think of our country as a body however, his followers represent about 30-40% of some part of this and we have to think about how to nurse that part back from this gangrene without killing all of us off.

    As we have seen the extent of the rot, it becomes (at least to me) very clear that the flooring under our wonderful country has sustained some rot and damage over the years, and we had better be careful how we walk and move the furniture of our democracy on top of it without a good inspection and some good repairs.

  214. 214.

    Mnemosyne

    @Soylent Green:

    It occurs to me that many voters got their first look at Trump on Monday. These folks don’t watch cable news and their FB friends don’t discuss politics. Many must have said “geez this man is rude. Didn’t his mama ever teach him how to behave?”

    I was thinking along similar lines while I was wandering around downtown. I think there’s a reasonably significant set of people who liked what they heard about Trump because there really is a fairly strong anti-establishment strain with voters right now, and they were thinking that Trump was going to use his bidness knowledge to clean up Washington, just like Jimmy Stewart.

    Then they actually saw Trump in action in the debates and said, “Holy schnickies! This guy is batshit insane!”

  216. 216.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: True, but what the House Dems are looking for is a bipartisan, public recognition pertaining to what Russia is doing and the alleged links to Trump. At the same time, not getting it, lashes the House GOP tightly to Trump as his protectors who are trying to cover for him. My guess is you’ll see a rollout of late (end of OCT/beginning of NOV) campaign ads asking why these GOP members of Congress are weak on Putin and refuse to do anything about cyber attacks on the US.

  223. 223.

    Elie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am sure there is more here. When do the leaders of the Repubs come up with the doomsday solution? Do you not think that they haven’t already thought about that? I do. And what the cost of that might be? Do you think that the NSA is thinking about post election alternatives given different outcomes? I do.

    Trump is not well mentally. It is unclear how unstable he is and how that will play out but I would say that both parties and the leadership of this country will have to come up with the worst case scenario alternatives. I tell ya, it might get real scary ….This 3 am stuff is right out of the psych manual. Can you imagine if he has a major break in a big event? Problem is that they can’t give him powerful antipsychotics without him showing effects. But if he is off the wall, how is THAT managed? Who turns him in?

  227. 227.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elie: Yes, this election has exposed some horrible things. Sunlight is a good disinfectant. We will know where we are.

  228. 228.

    SenyorDave

    @Villago Delenda Est: Brokaw seems to think that the issue of “who can bring us together” is more important than “Drumpf is a fascist shit”. There is NO QUESTION that he’s utterly unqualified, but Brokaw still thinks Hillary has not “made her case”.

    At this point no one can bring us together, since that would include the 60%+ of Republicans who still believe THERE IS DOUBT as to whether Obama was born in the US. Apologize for the caps, but I really do feel like screaming. I just spent an hour and a half pointing out to various people from Facebook all the lies they were posting. In some cases I made the mistake of going to their Facebook pages. These are people who post racist cartoons about Obama, talk incessantly about Saul Alinsky, and post every crazy Breitbart lie. I got two GFYs from different people when I linked to Snopes.com about their crazy conspiracy theories. I am starting to realize the depths of some people’s dementia when it comes to politics. Its all about poking liberals with most of them. And hating Muslims is a constant theme, I can only imagine the bigotry they must face on a day-to-day basis. I effing hate Trump most of all because of this. I hope Clinton continues to call him out on his bigotry.

  229. 229.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: More importantly we now have a much better idea of who the extremists are – not just on the fringe, but those who had been hiding in plain site. While it will take a lot of work to push the extremists back to the fringe, the one advantage that now exists is that they and their fellow travelers have outed themselves.

  231. 231.

    Lizzy L

    @SenyorDave: I spent part of the morning with a good friend talking about what will define the political center after the election, after Trump has lost — decisively, we both hoped. My friend has some hope that common ground can be identified. I’m more skeptical. We both agreed that the polarization is poisonous; I honestly can’t see a way out of it. Please note: I am not talking about making nice with fascists and racists. But we have to find ways to talk to each other again.

  233. 233.

    sigaba

    This is incredible: The Saga of Balloon Boy

    Today, I use the term Balloon Boy as shorthand for a special species of jerk, a catchall term for unreliable narrators whose studied theatricality and sociopathic zeal for attention lets them successfully prey on our media’s unceasing demand for new news.

  238. 238.

    Elie

    @Lizzy L:

    Very true. That is part if my concern about Trump — that he incites his people as things go south for him. We already saw the effects of Bernie delaying in talking his people down to supporting Hillary.. and that was all progressives. You can imagine if he spends a lot of time expanding his followers’ paranoia and need for revenge.

  240. 240.

    SenyorDave

    @Lizzy L: The problem is that the 27% people here always joke about – many of them just stone cold racists. And the internet is a great tool for fostering wannabe racists. I think many of them are not just racists, they are full blown haters, and they have found their messiah in Trump. The GOP has not just enabled Trump, they created and nurtured him. I’m very pessimistic, I think Hillary will have four years of investigations from day one. The leading lights of the Republican party, their up and comers are people like Chaffetz, who is content to have a never ending set of hearings about imagined wrongdoings. And the media won’t say boo, they’ll cover them as if they are not a sideshow.

  241. 241.

    sigaba

    @SenyorDave: I agree with Brokaw to the extent that she’s not making a positive case but I think this is mostly the media’s fault. When Hillary (or anybody) makes a positive case CNN cuts away immediately. Positive is boring. Meanwhile they’ll unapologetically air solid minutes of an empty podium in the hope that Trump shows up and says something crazy.

    It’s like we live in Kim Jeong Il’s North Korea, except instead of hanging on the utterances of Eternal Leader we wait for whoever makes us angry. Dictatorship of the clicks.

  242. 242.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sigaba:

    When Hillary (or anybody) makes a positive case CNN cuts away immediately.

    You just disproved your thesis. She makes a positive case every day. No one bothers to cover it.

  244. 244.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @amk: Jennings is dead, CBS has exiled Rather far away from Black Rock, but Brokaw still has a platform to spout Broderism.

  252. 252.

    JustRuss

    @efgoldman: I didn’t watch Brokaw much in his anchor days, but he seemed rational enough. I remember his first interview with Obama during the 2008 campaign…you could almost see the contempt radiating from him.

  253. 253.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    She makes a positive case every day. No one bothers to cover it.

    It seems like we face this problem every cycle. Very hard to get anything more complex than “Tastes great! v Less filling!” on the cable shows or the front page.

  255. 255.

    Bess

    @SenyorDave:

    Watching big name Republicans publicly state that they will not vote for Trump and seeing reliably Republican newspapers either refuse to endorse Trump or even endorse Clinton I wonder if a schism might have opened in the Republican party.

    It may be that there are now enough fiscally conservative and mildly conservative people who are no longer willing to buddy up with the haters that we’ll see a real struggle for control of the Republican party.

    I suspect the non-hater Republicans pretty much realize that they have to enlarge their party membership and while they might suffer at the polls for a round or three their future requires that they push the haters back under a rock and let them die off.

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